Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To form wrinkles or ripples.
  • intransitive verb To make a soft crackling sound; rustle.
  • intransitive verb To cause to crinkle.
  • noun A wrinkle, ripple, or fold.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To form or mark with short curves, waves, or wrinkles; make with many flexures; mold into corrugations; corrugate.
  • To turn or wind; bend; wrinkle; be marked by short waves or ripples; curl; be corrugated or crimped.
  • To cringe.
  • noun A wrinkle; a turn or twist; a ripple; a corrugation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To turn or wind; to run in and out in many short bends or turns; to curl; to run in waves; to wrinkle; also, to rustle, as stiff cloth when moved.
  • transitive verb To form with short turns, bends, or wrinkles; to mold into inequalities or sinuosities; to cause to wrinkle or curl.
  • noun A winding or turn; wrinkle; sinuosity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To fold, crease, crumple, or wad.
  • noun A wrinkle, fold, crease, or unevenness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make wrinkles or creases on a smooth surface; make a pressed, folded or wrinkled line in
  • verb become wrinkled or crumpled or creased
  • noun a slight depression in the smoothness of a surface

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English crinkled, full of turnings; akin to cringe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English, from Old English crincan

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word crinkle.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • All that remains of eights

    is spray pounded into white powder wafted

    a second, the surface crinkled a moment

    and then reverting to flawed glass, clap

    of blades re-echoed between black banks before

    drowning, before they lose way to the tow.

    - Peter Reading, Severn at Worcester, from For the Municipality's Elderly, 1974

    June 22, 2008