cringe

verb

1. (intransitive)To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear.

   “He cringed as the bird collided with the window.”

   “[W]hen they were come up to the place where the Lions were, the Boys that went before, were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the Lions, ſo they ſtept back and went behind.”

   “And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.”

   “Here the angel ceased, and frowning, / Hurled his heavy gauntlet at him; / Hurled, as best he could, the creature, / Cringing as the Serpent cringeth, / Coiled, and with his crest uplifted; / And then prone upon his belly, / Crawled away upon his belly, [...]”

   “But he [Jerry, a dog] made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth.”

2. (figuratively, intransitive)To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed.

   “I'm cringing watching this easily Blizzard- or Square Enix-worthy new trailer for Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls Online. Not because it's bad — it's a deftly rendered slice of CGI. But it must have cost a fortune. It makes me want to say "Spend the money on knocking the game out of the park, please, not the frippery, Bethesda." But oh what frippery.”

3. (intransitive)To bow or crouch in servility.

   “[I]f they keepe their wits, yet they are accompted fooles by reaſon of their carriage, becauſe they cannot ride a horſe, which euery Clowne can doe; ſalute and court a Gentlewoman, carue at table, cringe and make congies, which euery common ſwaſher can doe, [...]”

   “And thou ſly hypocrite, who now wouldſt ſeem / Patron of liberty, who more then thou / Once fawn'd,and cring'd, and ſervilly ador'd / Heav'ns awful Monarch?”

   “Lady, receive a tributary lay / From one who cringeth not to titled state / Conventional, and lacking will to prate / Of comeliness— [...]”

   “Humbly thou cringest that with nod of head / Couldst fling me seaward from they steepest cliffs!”

   “Leclère was bent on the coming of the day when Bâtard [a dog] should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.”

4. (figuratively, intransitive)To act in an obsequious or servile manner.

   “Here the beggar accoſts me; had I appeared as himſelf, he had aſked nothing: but now he uncovers, he cringeth, he cries for relief.”

   “Their [the clergy's] chief business, during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer.”

   “Even to the present day the Arabs consider treating a Hutaymi as unmanly as to strike a woman. When a Felláh says to another, "Tat'hattim" (= Tat'maskin, or Tat'zallí), he means, "Thou cringest, thou makest thyself contemptible (as a Hutaymi)."”

5. (obsolete, transitive)To draw (a body part) close to the body; also, to distort or wrinkle (the face, etc.).

   “[H]ow thriue you, howe periſh you, and they cringing in their neckes, like rattes, ſmothered in the holde, [...]”

   “Whip him Fellowes, / Till like a Boy you ſee him crindge his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.”

6. (obsolete, transitive)To bow or crouch to (someone) in servility; to escort (someone) in a cringing manner.

noun

1. (countable)A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking).

   “He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.”

2. (countable, figuratively)An act or disposition of servile obeisance.
3. (British, countable, dialectal)A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”).
4. (derogatory, slang, uncountable)Things, particularly online content, which would cause an onlooker to cringe from secondhand embarrassment.

   “Bro... you just posted cringe”

   “There was so much cringe in that episode!”

   “Los Angeles-based writer K. Allado-McDowell's new novel, Amor Cringe, is a love letter to cringe maximalism.”

   “Soon, there were Instagram compilation accounts dedicated to collecting the worst cringe, with a focus on cringe created by not-quite-random people who were performing, and failing, for thousands of their peers on TikTok.”

   “Many young people are also reevaluating what once constituted cringe, attributing use of the term to unacknowledged bigotry more than just a rejection of sincerity. Some niche communities, such as furries, anime fans, and fetish groups, who were once mocked on social media, have since amassed cultural power that has launched them into the mainstream.”

adj

1. (derogatory, slang)Synonym of cringeworthy or uncool, inducing awkwardness or secondhand embarrassment.

   “Brands trying to appeal to young people with memes is the most cringe thing ever.”

   “Last week, while giving a commencement speech to New York University graduates, pop star Taylor Swift offered a timely bit of advice: “No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime.””

   “No matter which side you stand on within a relationship, most people agree that couples participating in baby talk publicly is cringe to say the least.”

   “Instagram may not be on its deathbed, but its transformation from cool to cringe is a sea change in the social-media universe.”

   “We may have to face the fact that the current state of AI art is cringe because we're cringe. Really, we're no better than the unimaginative and self-obsessed people from the history books that commissioned bad portraiture.”

intj

1. (derogatory, slang)Stated in response to something cringeworthy.