Word.ws English Dictionary

cramped

/kɹæmpt/

cramped is the simple past and past participle of cramp.

Adjective

cramped (comparative more cramped, superlative most cramped)

  1. Uncomfortably restricted in size or space, or financially.
    • Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers,[…]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been...1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
    • Since then we have had the opportunity to travel in them and were much impressed by the internal styling and comfort of the seating (with the minor exception of the single seats which have been tucked in longitudinally alongside some of the entrance vestibules and which are so cramped that only the...1960 December, “The Glasgow Suburban Electrification is opened”, in Trains Illustrated, page 715
  2. Overcrowded or congested.
  3. Tight because of or like suffering a cramp.
  4. Illegible.

Meaning of cramp

Verb

cramp (third-person singular simple present cramps, present participle cramping, simple past and past participle cramped)

  1. (intransitive) (of a muscle) To contract painfully and uncontrollably.
  2. (transitive) To affect with cramps or spasms.
    • The collar of the tunic scratched my neck, the steel helmet made my head ache, and the puttees cramped my leg muscles.1936, Heinrich Hauser, Once Your Enemy (translated from the German by Norman Gullick)
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To prohibit movement or expression of.
    • You're cramping my style.
  4. (transitive) To restrain to a specific physical position, as if with a cramp.
    • You're going to need to cramp the wheels on this hill.
  5. To fasten or hold with, or as if with, a cramp iron.
  6. (broadly) To bind together; to unite.
    • The […] fabric of universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts.1780, Edmund Burke, Principles in Politics

See all 13 meanings of cramp

Forms of cramped

comparativemore cramped
superlativemost cramped

Words formed from cramped

Phrases with cramped

Words that rhyme with cramped

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cramped

What does cramped mean?
Cramped means uncomfortably restricted in size or space, or financially.
What is cramped the simple past and past participle of?
Cramped is the simple past and past participle of cramp.
What part of speech is cramped?
Cramped is an adjective.
How do you pronounce cramped?
Cramped is pronounced /kɹæmpt/.

Words near cramped in the dictionary

  1. cramp rings
  2. cramp someone's style
  3. cramp up
  4. Crampagna
  5. crampbark
  6. cramped
  7. cramped someone's style
  8. cramped up
  9. crampedly
  10. crampedness
  11. cramper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cramped (page history and authors); cramp (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cramped.wav.

Cite this entry: “cramped.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cramped. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.