Crinkle
//ˈkɹɪŋkəl// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A wrinkle, fold, crease, or unevenness.
"He observed the crinkles forming around his eyes and suddenly felt old."
- 2 a slight depression or fold in the smoothness of a surface wordnet
- 3 The act of crinkling.
Verb
- 1 To fold, crease, crumple, or wad. ambitransitive
"He crinkled the wrapper and threw it out."
- 2 become wrinkled or crumpled or creased wordnet
- 3 To rustle, as stiff cloth when moved. intransitive
"The green wheat crinkles like a lake."
- 4 make wrinkles or creases on a smooth surface; make a pressed, folded or wrinkled line in; ‘crisp’ is archaic wordnet
Example
More examples"I hate the sound that cellophane makes when you crinkle it."
Etymology
From Middle English crenclen (“to bend, buckle”), from Old English *crinclian, frequentative form of Old English crincan (“to yield”), from Proto-Germanic *kringaną (“to turn, to fall, to yield”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, wind”). Cognate with North Frisian krenge, krönge (“to obtain, reach, attain”), Dutch krinkelen (“to turn, wind”). Related to cringe.
Related phrases
More for "crinkle"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.