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Cramp   Listen
verb
Cramp  v. t.  (past & past part. cramped; pres. part. cramping)  
1.
To compress; to restrain from free action; to confine and contract; to hinder. "The mind my be as much cramped by too much knowledge as by ignorance."
2.
To fasten or hold with, or as with, a cramp.
3.
Hence, To bind together; to unite. "The... fabric of universal justic is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts."
4.
To form on a cramp; as, to cramp boot legs.
5.
To afflict with cramp. "When the gout cramps my joints."
To cramp the wheels of wagon, to turn the front wheels out of line with the hind wheels, so that one of them shall be against the body of the wagon.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cramp" Quotes from Famous Books



... it put me in a terrible funk. I put the largest Montenegrin of the group which accompanied us between myself and the firing party. I had not eaten a crumb since the day before, or taken even a cup of coffee, and my legs were in cramp from the hard walking for six hours in mud and snow, and I was ready to drop from fatigue and hunger. One of the chiefs who came by on his way to the ambulance, where the ghastly procession of wounded was now coming in, seeing me pale and exhausted, offered me ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... firesides of millions: the first faint scientific intimations that man is an all-pervading spirit. Not a body confined to a point in space, but the vast soul, which the ego in most barbaric modes conspires in vain to cramp. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... Garret's to pay her 12s. for her wages due tyll Friday last, which was Saint Margaret's day, and brought her xijd. for candles: she went by water; Mistres Lee went with her, and Robyn Jackesbite. Jane this night was sore trubbled with a collick and cramp in her belly; she vomyted this Monday more, and every night grew stiff in the sole likewise. A meridie hor. 3 cam Sir George Peckham to me to know the tytle for Norombega in respect of Spayn and Portugall ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee

... delivering sufferers from certain affections they were reputed to heal: Saint Genevieve for the burning sickness and ophthalmia, Saint Catherine of Alexandria for headache, Saint Bartholomew for convulsions, Saint Firmin for cramp, Saint Benedict for erysipelas and the stone, Saint Lupus for pains in the stomach, Saint Hubert for madness, Saint Appolina, whose statue, standing in the chapel of the Hospital of Saint John at Bruges, is graced by way of ex votos with strings of teeth and wax stumps, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... not, stranger, but she won't be coming near me at all, and it's not long now I'll be letting on, for I've a cramp in my back, and my hip's asleep on me, and there's been the devil's own fly itching my nose. It's near dead I was wanting to sneeze, and you blathering about the rain, and Darcy {bitterly}—the devil choke him—and the towering ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge

... three drops of Kayu Puteh oil, extracted from a Borneon wood and called cajeput oil in England, a very strong aromatic medicine. This mixture proved itself very useful. If the patients applied in good time it invariably gave relief to the cramp and pain in the stomach; if the disease had gone on to sickness it was more difficult to administer. Sometimes we followed it up with laudanum and ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... contingency. Nothing short of this will suffice to inspire that confidence which alone can be productive of permanent prosperity. The government of an individual, however respectable he may be, will always engender distrust and cramp exertion. Man is distinguished from the rest of the creation by his circumspection and providence. There must exist a moral probability of reaping before he will venture to sow. This cautious calculating disposition too, is most predominant in those who are in the most easy circumstances: ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... bent, And when their looks were lifted up to me, Straightway their eyes, before all moist within, Distill'd upon their lips, and the frost bound The tears betwixt those orbs and held them there. Plank unto plank hath never cramp clos'd up So stoutly. Whence like two enraged goats They clash'd together; them such fury seiz'd. And one, from whom the cold both ears had reft, Exclaim'd, still looking downward: "Why on us Dost speculate so long? If thou wouldst know Who are these two, the valley, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... in days that seem to man long, long ago. How brief and strange the little lives of men, and so beset with customs framed to cramp the heart and curse the soul before its time! To me,—here since Time began to build that bridge of sighs and tears that link the two eternities—it seems but yesternight that, hand in hand they wandered here, so wrapt in happiness born of equal ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... a thump. Here was a chance for Dan; a word from her was all that was needed to make his path an easy one. Had she a right to withhold that word,—to cramp and hinder him? She did not speak for a good many seconds; she simply plied her needle with more and more diligence, while her breath came fast and unevenly. Suddenly a furious blush went mounting up into her temples and spread itself ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... constantly, swallowing, chewing, gulping ferociously. Loiseau in his corner was very busy eating, and in a low voice was urging his wife to imitate him. She resisted for a long time, but, after a cramp, which ran through her stomach, she yielded. Then her husband, rounding his sentences, asked their "charming companion" whether she would allow him to offer a small piece to Madame Loiseau. She replied:—"Why, certainly, Sir!"—with ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... armed, as it seems, with teeth,—and then into the Frauen Zimmer, or Giantess's Apartment. It must have been but a sorry lodging for a lady of so much personal weight in the world, and supposing her proportions to have resembled those of her husband, would not fail to cramp her exceedingly; for it is nothing more than a hole in the rock, measuring perhaps twenty feet in length, by six or eight in width. But giants and giantesses lived, it is presumed, chiefly in the open air, and this which is called her chamber, may have been, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... is particularly required: strength both of body and mind; yet the men who, by their writings, have most earnestly laboured to domesticate women, have endeavoured by arguments dictated by a gross appetite, that satiety had rendered fastidious, to weaken their bodies and cramp their minds. But, if even by these sinister methods they really PERSUADED women, by working on their feelings, to stay at home, and fulfil the duties of a mother and mistress of a family, I should cautiously oppose opinions that led women ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... according to her sweet will. She learned to read with extraordinary rapidity, for she was eager to know more of that great world of which The Duke had told her such thrilling tales. Writing she abhorred. She had no one to write to. Why should she cramp her fingers over these crooked little marks? But she mastered with hardly a struggle the mysteries of figures, for she would have to sell her cattle, and "dad doesn't know when they are cheating." Her ideas of education ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... giving attention to the rescued Andy, there occurred with Jack one of those events which people call a cramp. I do not know what to call it, but it is not a cramp. It is a kind of collapse—a sudden exhaustion that may come to the best of swimmers. The heart insists on resting, the consciousness grows dim, the will-power flags, and the ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... had to say about it. Every word. You'd thought we'd exhausted the subject, or got the tongue cramp. But I expect we each had a lot of thoughts that didn't get registered. I know I did. And next mornin' the ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... jacynth superinduced sleep in cases of insomnia. Bed linen was often embroidered, and set with bits of jacynth, and there is even a record of diamonds having been used in the decoration of sheets! Another entertaining instance of credulity was the use of "cramp rings." These were rings blessed by the queen, and supposed to cure all manner of cramps, just as the king's touch was supposed to cure scrofula. When a queen died, the demand for these rings became a panic: no more could be produced, until a new queen was crowned. After the beheading of ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... high and steady For domestic broils be ready. When the glass is low and jerky Then look out for squalls in Turkey. When the air is dull and damp Keep your eye on Mr. CRAMP. When the air is clear and dry On BOB WILLIAMS keep your eye. When it's fine and growing finer Keep your eye upon the miner. When it's wet and growing wetter 'Twill be worse before it's better. When the tide is at its ebb Fix your gaze on SIDNEY WEBB. When the tide is at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various

... called a sleeping-room. Alcove-like cells were hewn into the rock; here, on a couch of damp, half-rotten straw, covered with a sackcloth, the unfortunate sufferers were to repose from the day's work. Over each cell a cramp-iron was fixed, wherewith to lock-up the prisoners like ferocious dogs. No door, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... time of war; for although war has its too gross and ugly side, it has not dared to learn that inflexibility of custom and conduct that deadens the spirit into a tame submission. This strange rebound and exaltation would seem to be due less to the physical realities of war—which must in many ways cramp and constrain the individual—than to the relative spiritual freedom engendered by the needs of war, if they are to be successfully met. The man of war has an altogether unusual opportunity to realize himself, ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... endless procession to consecrate and commemorate both. Colour-grinders and gilders, year after year, are bargained with to refresh the crumbling monuments and tarnished decorations of rude unregarded royalty, and to fasten the nails that cramp the crown upon the head. Meanwhile, in the laurels of my Torquato, there will always be one leaf, above man's reach, above time's wrath and injury, inscribed with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... But slowly and doggedly he went on sawing to and fro. He cut the flesh badly, but at last he felt the cord slacken. With his hands free, the rest was easy. Five minutes later he stood upright with some difficulty, owing to the cramp in his limbs. His first care was to bind up his bleeding wrist. Then he sat on the edge of the bed to think. Conrad had taken the key of the door, so he could expect little more assistance from Annette. The only outlet from the room was ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... for every indication of discontent, on the part of laboring men and women, at conditions which cramp or fetter the free utterance of their manhood or womanly glory. In that divine discontent is the hope of the ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed—then trod impatiently the track their prisoned feet had worn—and stopped and gazed again. Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the stone that no bright sky could warm. The flowers that sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... communicate, on paper, which might not have been left over for their interview? His mind was troubled, and, pushing the crowd away from immediately about him, he tore open the envelope and began the perusal—proceeding with a measured gait, the result as well of the "damned cramp hand" as of the still foggy intellect and unsettled vision of the reader. But as the characters and their signification became more clear and obvious to his gaze, his features grew more and more sobered and intelligent—a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... extends his hand, as if he had recovered from a cramp. The LADY kisses it. The STRANGER lifts her up and leads her to the door of ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... garden and the stars—"which I owe to Mary and the little speck on her lungs which brought us here after—after we had found that we had not as much money as we thought we had and an old fellow who had been an idling student, mostly living abroad all his life, felt the cramp of the material facts of board-and-clothes money. It made Mary well. It made me know the fulness of wisdom of the bee and the ant, and it brought me back to the spirit of America—the spirit of youth and accomplishment. Instead of dreaming of past cities, I set out to make a city like ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... I got a cramp in my back, and my neck's gone to sleep!" groaned Old Jimmie, leaning forward on his cane. "Daughter, dear"—plaintively to Maggie—"what is the crazy gentleman ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... shot one, and not being able to get it any other way, he stripped off his clothes and swam off for it. This in the month of December was a hazardous undertaking, and so it proved, for the young fellow took the cramp and was drowned. It was a very sad sight, so I am told by those who saw it, the old father walking up and down the beach all night calling for his son by name. In the morning the son was seen through the clear cold water lying on the bottom, and the body recovered. I remember his funeral, ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... each hoary knave Grows, here, immortal, and eludes the grave, Thy virtues immaturely met their fate, Cramp'd in the limit of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently, enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a wood-fire, until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... toward men and life was never completely lost. His skin was broken in three or four places; every bone in his body ached from the heavy kicks he had received; an intolerable thirst kept him gasping for every breath he drew; the cramp set up in his fore-legs by their being strapped tightly together, one across the other, was an exquisite pain; and his muzzle was held hard down against the grimy floor-boards of the cart, while his mind was full of a black despairing ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... him beyond the reach of spears, however ably thrown; and as to the enemy's rifles or muskets, he did not think they would be able to hit him as he swam with the rapid stream. Still he did not move, for he was so heated by his exertions that he dreaded risking cramp or ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... strength, and health, Cramp the soul's endeavour; Drive it down In hell to drown, Hell that burns ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... moment to rest, though not to stop, for I still struck out with my feet, I saw the savages on the margin of the water, fiercely threatening me with their daggers, but not daring to swim off in pursuit. My mind was greatly relieved; but there was the risk of cramp, or giving way from fatigue, as also the still greater danger of being snapped up by a huge shark. My friends, however, knew this as well as I did, and continuing to exert themselves as at first, at length came up with me. The time, however, seemed ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... the cramp out of that leg, boys, I'll 'fess up' everything," he began. "That leg feels as if some one were trying to pull some teeth out of it by the roots. A cramp ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... man's servant and the bearer of his children. And yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage, with all its deficiencies, to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that cramp and bind her nature. ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... of the 28th, we got on shore under the high land to the north of Hat Hill and were able to cook provisions and take some repose without disturbance. The sandy beach was our bed; and after much fatigue, and passing three nights of cramp in Tom Thumb, it was to us ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... got outside and the news I got, and for this here I found and fetched along. I need him. I was on a jury once, in a murder case, and they had the tool that done the job and the lawyers tagged it Exhibit A. This is it! He's got a name, but if I tried to say it, it would cramp my jaws and hold my mouth open so long that I'd get assifixiated with this smoke. This is Bill the Bomber! Demeter, hold up the goods we found ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... and the darling o' his maw's heart, little Jim. Only last summer he was off swimmin' with several o' his chums, and got caught with a cramp. They got him out, brave enough, but—he never ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... writer's cramp by the time he finished, but while the spending frenzy was on him he would take no rest; so he seized a pencil and, while Mr. Skinner called off the names of the deserving and the length of time each had spent in the Ricks service, Cappy scrawled ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... gendarme; however, he had only a very confused idea of what had happened. He had left Vernon without any breakfast, seized every now and then with hopeless despair and raging pangs which had driven him to munch the leaves of the hedges as he tramped along. A prey to cramp and fright, his body bent, his sight dimmed, and his feet sore, he had continued his weary march, ever drawn onwards in a semi-unconscious state by a vision of Paris, which, far, far away, beyond the horizon, seemed to be summoning him ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... that the terrific pace set by O'Grady was beginning to tell on the occupants of the canoe ahead. The speed grew less and less, until it was no more than seventy yards. In spite of the pains that were eating at his strength like swimmer's cramp, Jan could not restrain a low cry of exultation. O'Grady had planned to beat him out in that first twenty-mile spurt. And he had failed! His heart leaped with new hope even while his strokes were ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... to ride. My soul Smooth'd itself out, a long-cramp'd scroll Freshening and fluttering in the wind. Past hopes already lay behind. What need to strive with a life awry? Had I said that, had I done this, So might I gain, so might I miss. Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... citizens of London and Paris suddenly began to dance jerky and grotesque jigs on the pavements of their cities. In the same moment the Chief Justice of the Court of the Nations, at a cocktail party in Washington, writhed in the exquisite pain of total muscle cramp, his august features twisted into a mask ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy

... through the wild, late afternoon, in a beautiful motion that was smiling and transcendent. His mind was sweetly at ease, the life flowed through him as from some new fountain, he was as if born out of the cramp of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... my dear. Let your fancy and your judgment be both employed, and I require no method; for I know, in your easy, natural way, that would be a confinement, which would cramp your genius, and give what you write a stiff, formal air, that I might expect in a pedagogue, but not ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... describe her if her decided chin and the evidently Roman turn of her nose and of her character had not put divinity out of the question—shake hands with a not very imposing young prince, and bend her regal knees into this curious and sudden little cramp. I saw her, this adventurous maid, some days afterward in a hansom cab (shade of her grandmother, think of it!), directing with her imperious parasol the cabby to this and that shop. It struck me she should have been a Roman damsel, and have driven ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... of Thorogood, and raised an arm in greeting. As he did so a sudden spasm of cramp twisted his face like a mask. He relaxed his grasp of the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... The moral cramp forsook his hand. He took the money with a hearty "Thank you, sir." As he put it in his pocket, he felt its corners carefully, lest there should be a hole. But his pockets had not had half the wear ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... shelf from the top was devoted to a library edition of Shakespeare, large books bound in red morocco. Desmond, who, by this time was getting cramp in the arms from stretching upwards and had made his hands black with dust, pulled out a couple of volumes at hazard from the set and found them real books ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... you, you awake with a shudder despairing— You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover; But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... a swimmer with cramp or exhausted, or a drowning person who is obedient and remains quiet, the person assisted must place his hands on the rescuer's shoulders close to the neck at arm's length, turn on his back, and lie perfectly still with the head well back. Here the rescuer is uppermost; and, having his arms and ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... the dim slum threshold, he, Or hand in hand with poverty in the docks, Or black with stithy-swartness by the forge, Or troll-like in the mine; nor cares to walk With Wealth and Fashion in the parks and squares; But follow! Come thou down, and let the cold Cramp-headed cynics yelp alone, and leave The mugwump scoffers there to shape and sleek Their thousand paragraphs of acrid joke That like a squirting fountain waste in air: So waste thou not; but come; for hunger pale Awaits thee; haggard pillars of the hearth ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... is proper with every profession but that of Art. The artist must not be restrained, nor should even a wife come between him and his Art. The artist must not be judged by the same standards that are made for other men. Why? Simply because when you begin to tether him you cramp his imagination and paralyze his hand. The priest and artist must not marry, for it is too much to expect any woman to follow them in their flight, and they have no moral right to tie themselves to a woman and then ask her to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... Pinchas, you're a very clever fellow, I know, and I'm very glad to have you with us—but remember I have organized this movement for years, planned it out as I sat toiling in Belcovitch's machine-room, written on it till I've got the cramp, spoken on it till I was hoarse, given evidence before innumerable Commissions. It is I who have stirred up the East-End Jews and sent the echo of their cry into Parliament, and I will not be interfered ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... not what he knew it once— The nights were terribly damp; And he never was free from the rheumatiz Except when he had the cramp!" ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... teaching the pupil how much more he knows about our tongue than the great masters who have moulded it; which practically sets up the claim that the only men who are able to write English properly are the men who have never shown any capacity to write it at all; and which seeks, in a feeble way, to cramp usage by setting up distinctions that never existed, and laying down rules which it requires uncommon ignorance of the language to make or to heed. Still there are lengths to which the most strenuous stickler ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... wine he had taken, supplemented by his misery, made him feel physically ill. He shuddered with cold as he dived into the water, and as he swam out he felt, for the first time in his life, a slight twinge of cramp. At another time he would have been somewhat alarmed, for the strongest swimmer is absolutely helpless under an attack of cramp, but this morning he was indifferent, and the thought struck him that it would be well for ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... stays close to the girls who aren't so much used to it, in case they should get cramp, or turn giddy," explained Lettice. "Beatrice Marsden and Ivy Ridgeway are only beginning, so I expect she'll paddle about with them in four feet of water. Janie Henderson never ventures ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... three times simply to make the most of knowing where the soap was. Now and then, in fact, in a sort of bravado I deliberately lost it, so as to be able to catch it again and put it back in full view on the tray. You can also rest your feet on the tray when you are washing them, and so avoid cramp. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various

... And both choked, lying there gasping and covered with blood! while Joanne struggled vainly to free herself, and scream after scream rang from her lips. And John Aldous knew that at last the end had come. For there was no longer strength in his arms, and there was something that was like a strange cramp in his fingers, while the clutch at his own throat was turning the world black. His grip relaxed. His hands fell limp. The last that he realized was that Quade was over him, and that ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... own, but her career should not be confined or limited to it any more than a man's. I do not see why she should not be allowed to live the life normal to her; why she should be denied the right of self-expression, any more than the man. And I regard that man as a tyrant who tries to cramp her in the natural expression of her ambition or sneers at, nags, and criticizes her for seeking to bring out, to unfold, the sacred thing which the Creator has given her. This is one of her inalienable rights which no man should dare interfere with. If he does, he deserves ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... said Mr. Vyner, thoughtfully; "after all, perhaps it does one just as much good to watch other people at it. My back aches with watching you, and my knees are stiff with cramp. ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs

... wretched hard chair by the window; and I cry; and I watch the summer night and all the golden stars, and I cannot say what I think of during all these long and lonely hours; I only know that I cannot find energy to go to bed. And I never sleep a whole night through; the cramp comes on so terribly that I jump up screaming. Oh, Alice, how I hate him! When I think of it all I see how selfish men are; they never think of us—they only think of themselves. You would scarcely ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... born in the City; you have the airs, the very tricks, of Threadneedle Street, you— Jew". In a day the prelate counted seven hundred and thirteen telegrams from the Terni Cannon foundry, many a diamond dealer, polisher, cutter, the Vulcan Shipyard of Stettin, the Clydebank, Cramp of Philadelphia, the Russian Finance Minister, San Francisco, Lloyd's, metal brokers, the Neva, and one night, the eve of a dash to Amsterdam, he, with O'Hara, Loveday, and five clerks, sat swotting till morning broke, sustained by gin and soda-water. The priest lived with wide ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... cramp, which at her first terror had attacked Mrs. Ulrica's throat, now suddenly disappeared, and she emitted a long and loud scream; but no sooner had this been accomplished, than a large brawny hand was placed roughly ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... occurred about this time, 30th, principally in the men's feet, even when they had been walking quickly on shore for exercise. On examining their boots, Mr. Edwards remarked, that the stiffness of the thick leather of which they were made was such as to cramp the feet, and prevent the circulation from going on freely; and that this alone was sufficient to account for their feet having been frostbitten. Being very desirous of avoiding these accidents, which, from ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... you appreciate the fact that this is a long letter from a person with writer's cramp. But I still love you, Daddy dear, and I'm very happy. With beautiful scenery all about, and lots to eat and a comfortable four-post bed and a ream of blank paper and a pint of ink—what more does one ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... overlooked that important fact, and the suggestion came to him very like an attack of cramp. He laughed, however, took out a red silk handkerchief, and tried to wipe a little eagerness into ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... equally grasping both flexor and extensor muscles alike, they are steadied, and rendered much less likely to be affected with spasmodic action or cramp. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... be surprised to learn that Caroline missed every mass and had no breakfast. This hunger and thirst for Adolphe gave her a violent cramp in the stomach. She did not think of religion once during the hours of mass, nor during those of vespers. She was not comfortable when she sat, and she was very uncomfortable when she stood: Justine advised her to go to bed. Caroline, quite overcome, retired at about half past five in the evening, ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... at all, my dear boy,' said his father; 'I would rather cramp myself than that you should be cramped, a thousand times over. But it is all my Lady Clonbrony's nonsense. If people would but, as they ought, stay in their own country, live on their own estates, and kill their own mutton, money need never ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... mine ears the tale! But if, though troubled, ye can yet receive My counsel, thus assembled we will keep 335 Strict guard to-night; meantime, her gates and towers With all their mass of solid timbers, smooth And cramp'd with bolts of steel, will keep the town. But early on the morrow we will stand All arm'd on Ilium's towers. Then, if he choose, 340 His galleys left, to compass Troy about, He shall be task'd enough; his ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... Maggie; but oh! how bitterly he felt the wrong she had done him. For her own indulgence, how she would curtail and cramp all his future college course! He had hitherto dressed well, and been able to buy easily all the books he needed. For the future he would have to rely upon his own exertions; for his first decision had been to pay back the money he had taken ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... thirst, shook the cramp from her limbs, and said: "Some time we will have to see where this road leads. There may be more surprises beyond." She broke a flower from its stem and fastened it in Kirk's buttonhole, while he gazed down ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... multitude of questions and variety of subjects; which is much better than to confine and cramp his answers, and so deprive the old man of the most pleasant enjoyment he can have. In short, they that had rather please than distaste will still propose such questions, the answers to which shall rather get the praise and good-will than the contempt ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... flung his barbed darts at the Government is filled, physically, by Mr. STANTON. Lonely Mr. HOGGE now sits uneasily upon the Front Opposition Bench, but, fearing perhaps lest its dignified traditions should cramp his style, makes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... cramp to one small head The awful laurels of the dead, Time's mighty vintage cup, And drink ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... exertion in this rarefied air brought about a painful incident. Exhausted from cold and fatigue, a man called Rubso, a Christian convert, was seized with cramp. He was lying in a semi-conscious state, his teeth chattering, his features distorted and livid; his eyes were sunken and lifeless. We carried him under the shelter of a rock and rubbed him vigorously, endeavoring to restore his circulation. He eventually ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... you to put your left hand, on his neck with the nails of your thumb and fingers exactly on these marks. I said exactly. There is the thumb—right! Now the first finger—good! Now the third! And now the little finger! Don't cramp it up, reach it ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... of his animation came the return of his wonderful delusion on the subject of swimming. As soon as his chattering teeth would let him speak, he smiled vacantly, and said he thought it must have been the Cramp. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... free: doth Freedom, then, consist In musing with our faces toward the Past, While petty cares and crawling interests twist Their spider-threads about us, which at last Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind In formal narrowness heart, soul and mind? 20 Freedom is re-created year by year, In hearts wide open on the Godward side, In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, In minds that sway the future ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... about trusts, and—I like you, Mr. Alexander, you know that, mighty well, but I balk at your backin'. I don't believe in it. It'll fail when you count on it most. It'll cramp on you merciless if you come short of its expectations. Leverich isn't so bad, but Martin cramps a hold of him, and I can't stand Martin havin' a finger in any concern I have ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... to them are neuralgia and neuritis,—causing pains in the nerves of certain parts of the body; neurasthenia,—consisting mainly of the complete relaxation of tension in the nervous system, causing sadness, inability for work, etc.; asthma, cramp-like cessation of certain functions of the small vessels of the lungs, alveoli, which impedes respiration; epilepsy, temporary cramp in the greater part of the body, causing loss of consciousness, involuntary movements ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... woman and myself to become martyrs to his obstinate will. Were we to be starved to death? A frightful recollection came to my mind. Once we had fed on bits and scraps for a week while he sorted some curiosities. It gave me the cramp even ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... to say she had the cramp, or that her foot was asleep, and rush off to play with the children, or to see if my mother wanted her. My mother did not care for the reading, but she did want Nan to learn to sit in her chair and embroider, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a limited space, although in that space was a paradise, he felt the exquisite agony of cramp, and when, after sundry attempts to stretch himself, he at length found a position that afforded him temporary relief, it was only to become aware of a more refined species of torture. The springs of the carriage rising and falling regularly, produced a rhythmical beat, which ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... very famous swimmer at Eton, the Honorable Frederick undertook while at the Cowes to swim a certain considerable distance for a wager. In the midst of this enterprise he was suddenly seized with a cramp, and would inevitably have drowned had not the Lieutenant, who happened in a boat close at hand, leaped overboard and rescued the young gentleman from the watery grave in which he was about to be engulfed, thus restoring him once more to the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... window. "Mr. Pendennis rode by to-day," one of the boys told his mother, "with a lady, and he stopped and talked to us, and he asked for a bit of honeysuckle off the porch, and gave it the lady. I couldn't see if she was pretty; she had her veil down. She was riding one of Cramp's horses, out of Baymouth." ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sufficiently small to justify your increasing it. I am here to-night to ask you to issue, during the next three months, fifty thousand dollars' worth of city bonds, interest on which is to be 3 per cent., payable semi-annually. If you will agree to do this promptly, Bartlett, Cramp & Company, of New York, will take the entire amount at once. At the expiration of twenty years these bonds ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... chum of mine got in the water, and was taken with a cramp," Smithy went on hurriedly, his blue eyes sparking with delight; "why, after what you showed me this morning, I believe that as soon as I know a little more about swimming, I ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... was next called. He was a poet. (Laughter.) He was on his way to Mr. Grodman's house to tell him he had been unable to do some writing for him because he was suffering from writer's cramp, when Mr. Grodman called to him from the window of No. 11 and asked him to run for the police. No, he did not run; he was a philosopher. (Laughter.) He returned with them to the door, but did not go up. He had no stomach for crude sensations. (Laughter.) ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... met Steve at the small airport, both Rick and Scotty had writer's cramp, and the notebook was nearly used up. They had recorded over half a ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... the pattern in the binding of other copies; and this, he says, "will account for similar copies having been found in the libraries of so many persons, which from time to time has occasioned so much speculation." With Mr. Cramp's conjecture I do not concern myself; but I should be much obliged if he would inform me, through your Journal, in what libraries, and where, these many vellum-bound copies have been found, and where I can find the speculations to which they have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various

... in these latter kind of geniuses is lest they cramp their own abilities too much by imitation, and form themselves altogether upon models, without giving the full play to their own natural parts. An imitation of the best authors is not to compare with a good original; and I believe ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... Jacob Ritchey in the Gap is taken with a very severe attack of cramp colic. I relieve him speedily and effectually by means of active treatment. I found him in a state of almost indescribable distress from the acute pains he had. I decided very quickly, after a brief examination, that the cause of his trouble lay in a spasmodic contraction of the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... must, in their action, be free from the disturbance of uncontrolled breath action below them, or the hindrance due to misdirected effort above them. To direct consciousness to the vocal cords is to cramp them and prevent that free vibration and that perfect relaxation of the throat without which pure tone and ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... with his hand, doubted his physical ability to remain in that ice-cold current more than a few minutes at a time, and if he worked in the tunnel he would be all but submerged. He feared he would perish with cold and cramp before he had made any ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... still, but I felt sick with the peculiar cramp in my neck. Suddenly she dropped the ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... prejudices as to snapping-turtles. The surgeon would have threatened intermittent fever, the first assistant rheumatism, and the second assistant congestive chills; non-swimmers would have predicted exhaustion, and swimmers cramp; and all this before coming within bullet-range of any hospitalities on the other shore. But I knew the folly of most alarms about reptiles and fishes; man's imagination peoples the water with many things which do not belong ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... ornamentation of the top of the bell, you get two spaces at the sides under arches, very difficult to cramp one's picture into, if it is to be a picture only; but entirely provocative of our old Etruscan instinct of ornament. And, spurred by the difficulty, and pleased by the national character of it, we put our best work into these arches, utterly neglectful of the public below, —who ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... she would witness on such occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality. Once there came out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends evidently. They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp. At that moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face. The Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear. Alarums! Excursions! A German officer rushed up to enquire while the Frenchman was struggling ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... be made equal throughout the civilized world, and the hackneyed cry of her mental inferiority will be heard of no more, excepting when mentioned among the other exploded theories of the Dark Ages and of barbaric times. The cramping of the mental powers of women, or the attempting to cramp them, lest they might claim equal advantages with the other half of the race, will be classed—and justly so—with the cramping of women's feet by the Chinese, lest they might claim and exercise the liberty of walking the streets at pleasure, as their husbands do. ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... I chide you, dame, to amend you. You are too fine to be a Millers daughter; for if you should but stoop to take up the tole dish, you will have the cramp in your finger at least ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... other arts; and being, in mine opinion, one of the most sound and healthful writings that I have read. Not sick of business, as those are who lose themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes and paintings as those do, who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth, and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth, and apt for action;'—[this passage ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... to forget his recent complaint of "cramp," for he made a lusty plunge toward the pier and ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock

... gentleman was seized with such an incontrollable fit of the cramp as could only be relieved by immediate exercise. He therefore begged permission to be allowed to saunter abroad for a little while, if Sir Henry Lee considered ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... the end of the year. There are many other superstitions attached to the day, such as the preserving of eggs laid on Good Friday, which were supposed to have power to extinguish fire; the making of cramp-rings out of the handles of coffins, which rings were blessed by the King of England as he crept on his knees to the cross, and were supposed to ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... and Clerk of Session, the labours and anxieties in which the ill-directed and tottering firm of Ballantyne involved him, the keen interest which he took in every detail of the adornment of the house and estate of Abbotsford, and finally, notwithstanding obstinate and agonizing attacks of internal cramp which were undermining his constitution, Scott continued to produce rapidly the wonderful series of the Waverley Novels. "The Bride of Lammermoor," "Legend of Montrose" and "Ivanhoe" appeared in 1819, "The Monastery," "The Abbot" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... the most excellent, nourishing, and restorative remedies, and supersedes, in many cases, all kinds of medicines. It is particularly useful in confined habit of body, as also diarrhoea, bowel complaints, affections of the kidneys and bladder, such as stone or gravel; inflammatory irritation and cramp of the urethra, cramp of the kidneys and bladder, strictures, and hemorrhoids. This really invaluable remedy is employed with the most satisfactory result, not only in bronchial and pulmonary complaints, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various

... jewels. Our English ladies, though quite of the second rate of even colonial gentility, however, bore away the prize of beauty and grace; for after all, the clothes, however elegant, that are not worn habitually, can only embarrass and cramp the native movements; and, as Mademoiselle Clairon remarks, "she who would act a gentlewoman in public, must ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... knowledge of ballads to any man breathing," said Mr. Daly; "and, with God's blessing, I'll sing you one this evening, after dinner, that will give you a cramp in ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... her clothes and plunged thus n-k-d into the cool waters of the lake. After she had swum around a little she began to realize the extent of her folly and was hurriedly swimming towards the shore when a terrific cramp had seized her lower limbs, rendering them powerless. Her first impulse, to scream for help, was quickly checked with a deep blush, as she realized the consequences if a man should hear her call, for nearby was an encampment of Union soldiers, ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart

... insults. He could not throw a cricket-ball, he could not see to catch one after it was thrown to him, did he try to kick a football he missed it, and when he had run for five minutes he saw purple skies and silver stars and has cramp in his legs. He had, however, during these years at Mr. Lasher's, this ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... often keep up the building which would have fallen, with that brace the less. There is a remarkable difference between the characters of the inconveniences which attend a declaration of rights, and those which attend the want of it. The inconveniences of the declaration are, that it may cramp government in its useful exertions. But the evil of this is short-lived, moderate, and reparable. The inconveniences of the want of a declaration are permanent, afflicting, and irreparable. They are in constant progression from bad to worse. The executive, in our governments, is not the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... hypaethral part. The admirable hydraulic cement is here and there made to take the place of broken corners, and flaws have been remedied by carefully letting in small cubes of sound stone. There are also cramp-holes for metal which, of course, has been carried off by the Bedawin: the rusty ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... gave a rather chilly welcome to Lord BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH'S Bill for the regulation of advertisements. It is true that the noble author had explained that his object was to secure "publicity without offence," but I believe he had no desire to cramp the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various

... a friend—of a sort. It happened that, as I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream. The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... laws of the realm, no person ought to be detained in custody above twenty-four hours without examination. This occasioned a considerable debate, and the Duc d'Orldans, provoked at this expression, said that the President's aim was to cramp the royal authority. Nevertheless the latter vigorously maintained his argument, and was unanimously seconded by all the deputies, for which they were next day applauded in Parliament. In short, the thing was pushed so far that the Queen was obliged to consent ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... almost unaltered since the Aryan genius culminated in the Ramayana and Mahabharata—and yet each artisan in India is a true artist."[41] In art, unfortunately, "the letter killeth;" and true artists as they are, the ancient traditions bind and cramp them, while the ancient materials, the dyes, and the absolute command of time are failing: so that the beauty of Indian embroideries and other decorations is gradually reducing itself to mannerism, which is more dangerous to art than even had been the vicissitudes of war; for when ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... slave. In a word, his nickname at school was 'Sir Giles Overreach.' His death was the result of his strange passion for tormenting others. He had a fag who could not swim, and who had the greatest terror of the water; and it was while driving this child into the river out of his depth that cramp seized himself, and he was drowned. Yes, when I think what that boy would have been as a man, succeeding to Darrell's wealth—and had Darrell persevered (as he would, perhaps, if the boy had lived) ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and of the practice of adjusting knowledge to the needs of the feeble-minded by perpetual explanation of what is already simple ad nauseam for the mature intelligence of the teacher. It produces a sort of pedagogical cramp in the soul, for which there is no remedy like a philosophical view of the world, unless, perhaps, it be the study of the greatest poets, ...
— Child Stories from the Masters - Being a Few Modest Interpretations of Some Phases of the - Master Works Done in a Child Way • Maud Menefee

... of instruction that may tend to perpetuate mannerism, to cramp originality, and fetter genius, has of late years led to considerable opposition to art-academies generally, whenever more is contemplated by them than the mere school-teaching of the pupil, and the affording him assistance at the outset of his professional life. Haydon was fond of declaring ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... long and no longer. When the world is quiet and I am alone at night, if I don't go to sleep at once—it is terrible! Do you think I should be afraid of death? If I have got to go through life with this terrible ache in my heart, in my whole body —for when I cry my very fingers cramp—I'd a thousand times rather go to Cuba and have done ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... light, dry, crackling grass, but suddenly became conscious of a smarting in the legs as though walking through nettles, and noticed that the grass was adhering to my stockings. However, I pushed on, my dog being hot on the scent, but presently we both came to a standstill—I, because of cramp in both legs, each of which was now enveloped in grass to the size of a bee-hive; while the dog's shaggy coat had collected it till he appeared as large as a sheep, and could no longer force his way along, besides ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... faith cries for elbow-room, and he who pins his faith to common-sense is like to get a cramp in it. Therefore since women, as I hear tell, have ceased to spin brides' shifts, I am obliged to believe that these things are spun by toads. Because brides there must be though ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... too was stability, permanence: the wind ruffling the grass as it had done when the Normans crossed their not far distant Channel, or rattling over hilltops through leather-coated oak groves which had kept their symmetry since their progenitors were planted by the Druids. Here was nothing to cramp the mind: here was the England that has absorbed Celt, Saxon, Fleming, Norman, generation after generation, each with its passing form of political faith: the England of traditional eld, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... ground and eased and stiffened his knees to get out the cramp of long riding. Off the horse he seemed even bigger and more capable than before, and now that he had come sufficiently close, so that the shadow from his sombrero's brim did not partially mask the upper ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... surroundings. In a word, being older than my years, I began to think for myself. Under the influence of Mr. Wetherill I had come, as without him I could not have done, to see how much there was of the beautiful and noble in the creed of Fox and Penn, how much, too, there was in it to cramp enterprise, to limit the innocent joys of life, to render progress impossible, and submission to every base man or ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... next day. The horse, which had been lamed by the nail, now, of course, had recovered; and it was found by Mrs. Beaumont that she had been misinformed, and that he had been lamed only by sudden cramp. Any excuse she knew would be sufficient, in the present state of affairs, to the young lady, who was more ready to be deceived than even our heroine was disposed to deceive. Indeed, as Machiavel says, "as there are people willing ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... it?" cried Nora from the bank where she was tossing bits of wood into the lake for Trouble to pretend they were little boats. "Have you got a cramp, Teddy boy?" ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis

... eventful day came at last, and nearly the whole school mustered at Cramp Corner to see the sport. For the half-mile race, which was to come off first, there were only two fellows competing. Our man was Barlow—of paper-chase celebrity—while the sixth were very confident of ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... in the humid west wind. Blake, when he reported, appeared without his usual cheer; and Jerd wore a harassed look of a worn and worried man. And when Judkins put in appearance, riding a lame horse, and dismounted with the cramp of a rider, his dust-covered figure and his darkly grim, almost dazed expression told Jane of dire calamity. She had no need ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... perished? Poetry and youth are of a volatile mood,—they are butterflies. Shut them up in a cage, and they will dash their delicate wings to pieces against its bars. Endeavor to direct them as they soar, and you cramp their flight, you deprive them of their audacity,—two qualities which are often to be met with in inexperience, and the loss of which—am I wrong in saying so?—is not always compensated by maturity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... conditions than the activity of the ovaries, and lasts a very much shorter time than does either the function of ovulation, or even than the uterine congestion secondary to it. Outside of actual uterine disease, the pain at this moment is most often dependent on uterine cramp, itself excited by a spasmodic contraction of blood-vessels that interfere with its circulation. As these remarks are addressed to non-medical readers, a word of explanation ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... for a very long time. He awoke to excruciating pain, of which he seemed to have been vaguely aware throughout, and found himself bound hand and foot and slung across the back of a camel. He dangled helplessly face downwards, racked by cramp and a fiery torment of thirst more intolerable than anything he had ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... I almost got writer's cramp making out I. O. U.'s for him. Then his manner changed a bit and he began kidding me. He was good-natured with it at first, but after a while he grew nasty, and one night he taunted me before the whole crowd about ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... it's over! I never want to write another word in my life. My hand's stiff with cramp!" exclaimed the girl with the red hair-ribbon to a sympathetic audience ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... physiological absurdity in supposing such a general arrest of function, originating in the nervous system, and continuing an indefinite period without life being extinguished. If a swimmer be taken with cramp and sink, he is irretrievably dead in five minutes. But if he sink from a fit of epilepsy, he may remain a longer time under water, yet recover. But epilepsy is a form of loss of consciousness beginning in the nervous system—a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... wherefore. I myself am not able to say a word there anent, inasmuch as I wish not to apprehend it; but so much I can say for certain, that one of my journeymen on his way to the fair had his feet twisted double with cramp, and I know what I know. If, therefore, my Lord General so wishes it, and considers it seasonable that men for the common good of the kingdom should make a revolution, therefore we most humbly and respectfully petition for the same. And ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... Cramp applauded the sentiments of the last speaker, but considered that he avoided the real issue. The Chairman had declared himself a Georgian, but that was not enough. The worst enemies of Free Verse were to be found in that camp. In technique and even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various

... suddenly and most unexpectedly. My father was away from home on a long trip to Alaska. I was at Vassar. My mother was with a congenial party of friends at a favorite seaside resort. One day while bathing, one lady of the party swam too far out, was taken with a cramp and shrieked for help. My mother, who was nearest, being an excellent swimmer, courageously went to her assistance. Unfortunately, the tide was running full and strong and was against my mother in her heroic struggle to save her friend. Alas! before aid could reach them both ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... save Thy soul from sin, from infamy thy grave? Blackmore and Quarles, those blockheads of renown, Lavish'd their ink, but never harm'd the town. Though this, thy brother in discordant song, Harass'd the ear, and cramp'd the labouring tongue: 80 And that, like thee, taught staggering prose to stand, And limp on stilts of rhyme around the land. Harmless they dozed a scribbling life away, And yawning nations own'd the innoxious lay, But from thy ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... right if you don't get cramp," said Avis. "That must be dreadful. Once when we spent our holidays at Whitby we had such an adventure. We were walking along the shore, and we saw a young lady swimming a little distance out. Suddenly she flung up her arms and shrieked, and went down into the water. My father ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... been named, and he arrived indomitable and irreconcilable, though almost paralysed from eight weeks of cramp in his narrow cage which had restricted all movement. Mulcachy should have undertaken the job immediately, but two weeks were lost by the fact that he had got married and honeymooned for that length of time. And in that time, in a large cage ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... I'd be 'feard to say dere ain't nothing in voo-doo. Some puts a dime in de shoe to keep de voo-doo away, and some carries a buckeye in de pocket to keep off cramp and colic. Dey say a bone dey finds in de jawbone of a hog will make chillun teethe easy. When de slaves got sick, de whitefolks looked after 'em. De medicines for sickness was nearly all yerbs. Dey give boneset for colds, made tea out ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... whose penetrating genius alone could have discovered, by the means he did, an inscription, of which not a single letter has been seen for many ages; but this habile observateur, perceiving a great number of irregular holes upon the frontal and frize of this edifice, concluded that they were the cramp-holes which had formerly held an inscription, and which, according to the practice of the Romans, were often composed of single letters of bronze. Mons. Seguier therefore erected scaffolding, and took off on paper the distances ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... often limited to training for citizenship, and citizenship is then interpreted in a narrow sense as meaning capacity to vote intelligently, disposition to obey laws, etc. But it is futile to contract and cramp the ethical responsibility of the school in this way. The child is one, and he must either live his social life as an integral unified being, or suffer loss and create friction. To pick out one of the many social ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey

... applied, they are likely to slip, particularly when the peg-box diminishes rapidly in width under the volute. They must therefore be cut more or less wedge like, according to the modelling or proportion of the parts, so that when placed on, the screwing of the cramp will be direct. When this is done to satisfaction, the usual process advised for the glueing may be proceeded with, and being carefully seen to be in proper order, the cramp with pads against the outside ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick



Words linked to "Cramp" :   restrain, myoclonus, affect, halter, blepharospasm, trismus, symptom, sustain, strip, wrick, strangle, charley horse, secure, bound, fasten, intermittent cramp, get, have, opisthotonos, charley-horse, crick, throttle, twitch, twitching, suffer, kink, restrict, trammel, vellication, spasm, muscle spasm



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