crisp

From Middle English crisp (“curly”), from Old English crisp (“curly”), from Latin crispus (“curly”). Doublet of crape and crepe.

• IPA^(key): /kɹɪsp/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɪsp

crisp (comparative crisper, superlative crispest)

1. (of something seen or heard) Sharp, clearly defined.

   This new television set has a very crisp image.

2. Brittle; friable; in a condition to break with a short, sharp fracture.

   The crisp snow crunched underfoot.

   • 1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC:

     The cakes at tea ate short and crisp.

3. Possessing a certain degree of firmness and freshness.
   • 1820, Leigh Hunt, The Indicator:

     It [laurel] has been plucked nine months, and yet looks as hale and as crisp as if it would last ninety years.

4. (of weather, air etc.) Dry and cool.
5. (of movement, action etc.) Quick and accurate.
   • 2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     Stephen Ward's crisp finish from Sylvan Ebanks-Blake's pass 11 minutes into the second half proved enough to give Mick McCarthy's men a famous victory.

6. (of talk, text, etc.) Brief and to the point.

   An expert, given a certain query, will often come up with a crisp answer: “yes” or “no”.

   • 1999, John Hampton, Lisa Emerson, Writing Guidelines for Postgraduate Science Students, page 130:

     Another way of writing the last example is 'She brought along her favourite food which is chocolate cake' but this is less concise: colons can give your writing lean, crisp style.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XV, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     It was plain that the loss of Phyllis Mills, goofy though she unquestionably was, had hit him a shrewd wallop, and I presumed that he was coming to me for sympathy and heart balm, which I would have been only too pleased to dish out. I hoped, of course, that he would make it crisp and remove himself at an early date, for when the moment came for the balloon to go up I didn't want to be hampered by an audience. When you're pushing someone into a lake, nothing embarrasses you more than having the front seats filled up with goggling spectators.

7. (of wine) Having a refreshing amount of acidity; having less acidity than green wine, but more than a flabby one.
8. Lively; sparking; effervescing.
   • c. 1612–1630, John Fletcher, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, Philip Massinger, “The Bloody Brother; or, Rollo. A Tragedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, Act IV, scene ii:

     your neat crisp claret

9. (dated) Curling in stiff curls or ringlets.

   crisp hair

10. (obsolete) Curled by the ripple of water.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

      You nymphs called Naiads, of the winding brooks […] Leave your crisp channels.

11. (computing theory) Not using fuzzy logic; based on a binary distinction between true and false.
12. (of fabric) Starched and pressed (ironed).

• crispate
• crispated
• crispation

crisp (plural crisps)

1. (UK, Ireland) A very thin slice of potato that has been deep fried, typically packaged and sold as a snack.
   • 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 33:

     "Go and get some crisps and pop," he said.

   • 2014, “Every Other Freckle”, in This Is All Yours, performed by alt-J:

     Turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet

   • 2016, Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons & Rob Gibbons, Alan Partridge: Nomad, page 44:

     As I sit in front of the TV angrily eating crisps, it comes to me. I will challenge her to a race.

2. (UK, Ireland, by extension, colloquial) A crunchy, savoury snack food made from potato starch, cornmeal or other starchy cereal grain, packaged and eaten similarly to the above.
   • 2018, Katie Ginger, The Little Theatre on the Seafront, HQ:

     "When she’s not writing, Katie spends her time with her husband and two kids, and their dogs: Wotsit, the King Charles spaniel, and Skips, the three-legged rescue dog. (And yes, they are both named after crisps!)

3. A baked dessert made with fruit and crumb topping

   Synonyms: crumble, crunch

4. (UK, Ireland, food) Anything baked or fried in thin slices and eaten as a snack.

   kale crisps

• (thin slice of fried potato, Australia, Canada, US): chip, potato chip

crisp (third-person singular simple present crisps, present participle crisping, simple past and past participle crisped)

1. (transitive) To make crisp.

   Synonym: crispen

   to crisp bacon by frying it

   • c. 1752, Elizabeth Moxon, English Housewifry, Leeds: James Lister, “To make Hare Soop,” p. 6,^[2]

     […] put it into a Dish, with a little stew’d Spinage, crisp’d Bread, and a few forc’d-meat Balls.

   • 1929, Thomas Wolfe, chapter 17, in Look Homeward, Angel‎^[3], New York: Modern Library, page 230:

     Eliza was fretful at his absences, and brought him his dinner crisped and dried from its long heating in the oven.

2. (intransitive) To become crisp.

   Synonym: crispen

   to put celery into ice water to crisp

   • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 8, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:

     […] the air chilled at sunset, the ground crisped, and ere dusk, a hoar frost was insidiously stealing over growing grass and unfolding bud.

   • 1895, Rudyard Kipling, “Letting in the Jungle”, in The Second Jungle Book‎^[4], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, page 79:

     The dew is dried that drenched our hide
     Or washed about our way;
     And where we drank, the puddled bank
     Is crisping into clay.

   • 2007, Anne Enright, chapter 24, in The Gathering‎^[5], New York: Black Cat, page 154:

     Her hair feels fake, like a wig, but I think it is just crisping up under the dye and Frizz-Ease.

   • 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, New York: HarperCollins, Part 4, Chapter 2:

     […] the flick of the wrist with which one rolls the half-set wafer on to the handle of a wooden spoon and then flips it on to the drying rack to crisp.

3. (transitive, dated) To cause to curl or wrinkle (of the leaves or petals of plants, for example); to form into ringlets or tight curls (of hair).
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     […] those crisped snaky golden locks
     Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,

   • 1609, Douay-Rheims Bible, 2 Chronicles 4.5,^[6]

     […] the brimme therof was as it were the brimme of a chalice, or of a crisped lilie:

   • 1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses Elizium, London: John Waterson, “The Description of Elizium,” The fift Nimphall, p. 44,^[7]

     The Louer with the Myrtle Sprayes

     Adornes his crisped Tresses:

   • 1800, Thomas Pennant, “China”, in The View of Hindoostan‎^[8], volume 3, London: Henry Hughs, page 172:

     […] the well known rhubarb of our gardens, with roundish crisped leaves.

   • 1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter 23, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York, Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC, part II (Life as a Freeman), page 360:

     For a time I was made to forget that my skin was dark and my hair crisped.

   • 1900 December – 1901 October, Rudyard Kipling, chapter 7, in Kim (Macmillan’s Colonial Library; no. 414), London: Macmillan and Co., published 1901, →OCLC, page 176:

     The mere story of their adventures […] on their road to and from school would have crisped a Western boy’s hair.

4. (intransitive, dated) To become curled.
   • 1597, John Gerarde [i.e., John Gerard], “Of Lettuce”, in The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. […], London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton, →OCLC, book II, page 239:

     The Sauoie Lettuce hath very large leaues ſpread vpon the grounde, at the firſt comming vp broade, cut, or gaſht about the edges, criſping or curling lightly this or that way, not vnlike to the leaues of garden Endiue, […]

   • 1972, Richard Adams, chapter 50, in Watership Down‎^[9], New York: Scribner, published 1996, page 417:

     […] a few shreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal

5. (transitive, dated) To cause to undulate irregularly (of water); to cause to ripple.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 237-238:

     […] the crisped Brooks,
     Rowling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold

   • 1818, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, London: John Murray, stanza 53, p. 29,^[10]

     I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream

     Wherein that image shall for ever dwell;

   • 1860, John Ruskin, chapter 1, in Modern Painters […], volume V, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, part IX (Of Ideas of Relation:—II. Of Invention Spiritual.), § 14, page 204:

     […] when the breeze crisps the pool, you may see the image of the breakers, and a likeness of the foam.

   • 1916 December 29, James Joyce, chapter IV, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC, page 194:

     […] he saw a flying squall darkening and crisping suddenly the tide.

6. (intransitive, dated) To undulate or ripple.
   • 1630, Henry Hawkins (translator), Certaine selected epistles of S. Hierome, Saint-Omer: The English College Press, “The Epitaphe of S. Paula,” p. 96,^[11]

     Hitherto we haue sayled with a fore-wind, & our sliding ship hath plowed vp the crisping waues of the Sea at ease.

   • 1832, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters,” Choric Song, V., in Poems, London: Moxon, p. 114,^[12]

     To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,

     And tender curving lines of creamy spray:

   • 1908, Helen Keller, “The Seeing Hand”, in The World I Live In,‎^[13], New York: The Century Co., page 11:

     […] the quick yielding of the waves that crisp and curl and ripple about my body.

7. (transitive, dated) To wrinkle, contort or tense (a part of one's body).
   • 1741, Alexander Pope, chapter 10, in Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus‎^[14], Dublin: George Faulkner, page 82:

     […] he consider’d what an infinity of Muscles these laughing Rascals threw into a convulsive motion at the same time; whether we regard the spasms of the Diaphragm and all the muscles of respiration, the horrible rictus of the mouth, the distortion of the lower jaw, the crisping of the nose, twinkling of the eyes, or sphaerical convexity of the cheeks, with the tremulous succussion of the whole human body:

   • 1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure‎^[15], New York: Harper, published 1896, Part 4, Chapter 3, p. 266:

     Phillotson saw his wife turn and take the note, and the bend of her pretty head as she read it, her lips slightly crisped, to prevent undue expression under fire of so many young eyes.

   • 1914, Frank Norris, chapter 15, in Vandover and the Brute‎^[16], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, pages 242–243:

     […] a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves, beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his bed screaming.

   • 1915, John Galsworthy, chapter 27, in The Freelands,‎^[17], London: Heinemann, page 252:

     Ah, here was a fellow coming! And instinctively he crisped his hands that were buried in his pockets, and ran over to himself his opening words.

   • 1952, Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea‎^[18], New York: Scribner:

     They [the shark’s teeth] were shaped like a man’s fingers when they are crisped like claws.

8. (intransitive, dated) To become contorted or tensed (of a part of the body).
   • 1935, Edgar Wallace, Robert G. Curtis, chapter 10, in The Man Who Changed His Name,‎^[19], London: Hutchinson:

     […] she gave no sign of the wave of repugnance that swept over her except that her fingers suddenly crisped.

9. (transitive, intransitive, rare) To interweave (of the branches of trees).
   • 1938, Lawrence Durrell, The Black Book‎^[20], Open Road Media, published 2012, Book 2:

     […] the hot pavement by the playing field where the trees crisp together.

10. (intransitive, dated) To make a sharp or harsh sound.

    Synonyms: creak, crunch, crackle, rustle

    • 1860, Nikolai Gogol, “The Night of Christmas Eve: A Legend of Little Russia”, in George Tolstoy, transl., Cossack Tales‎^[21], London: Blackwood, page 1:

      […] everything had become so still that the crisping of the snow under foot might be heard nearly half a verst round.

    • 1904, Harry Leon Wilson, chapter 10, in The Seeker‎^[22], New York: Doubleday, Page, page 239:

      […] the wheels [of the carriage] made their little crisping over the fine metal of the driveway.

    • 1915, Clotilde Graves (as Richard Dehan), “A Dish of Macaroni” in Off Sandy Hook, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, p. 39,^[23]

      […] her light footsteps and crisping draperies retreated along the passage,

    • 1915, Elisha Kent Kane, chapter 16, in Adrift in the Arctic Ice Pack‎^[24], New York: Outing Publishing Company, published 1916, page 291:

      The same peculiar crisping or crackling sound […] was heard this morning in every direction […] the ‘noise accompanying the aurora,’

    • 1948 November, Max Brand, “Honor Bright”, in The Cosmopolitan:

      Jericho had placed in my hand a glass in which the bubbles broke with a crisping sound.

11. (transitive, dated) To colour (something with highlights); to add small amounts of colour to (something).

    Synonym: tinge

    • 1876 December, Margaret Oliphant, “The Secret Chamber”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume 120, page 718:

      It was the form of a man of middle age, the hair white, but the beard only crisped with grey,

    • 1921, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Sea”, in Sea and Sardinia, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, →OCLC, page 55:

      […] Monte Pellegrino, a huge, inordinate mass of pinkish rock, hardly crisped with the faintest vegetation, looming up to heaven from the sea.

    • 1925, Warwick Deeping, chapter 7, in Sorrell and Son‎^[25], New York: Grosset & Dunlap, published 1926, page 66:

      The leaves of the chestnut were crisped with gold.

• “crisp”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “crisp”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• Crips, crips, scrip

• cripce, crips, crispe, crysp, cryspe, kyrspe

From Old English crisp, cirps and Old French cresp, crespe, from Latin crispus.

• IPA^(key): /krisp/, /krips/

crisp (plural and weak singular crispe)

1. curly, curled
2. curly-haired
3. crinkly or wavy

• crispen

• English: crisp

• “crisp, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

crisp (plural crispes)

1. A kind of curled pastry.
2. A kind of crinkly fabric.

• English: crisp

• “crisp, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

From Latin crispus (“curly”).

crisp

1. (of hair) curly

• Middle English: crisp, cripce, crips, crispe, crysp, cryspe, kyrspe
  • English: crisp

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “crisp”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[26], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.