crimp
/kɹɪmp/
"crimp" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crimp” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #46,404 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #46,404
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crimp |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /kɹɪmp/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #46,404 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “crimp” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for crimp is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɹɪmp/. Corpus data places it at rank #46,404 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for crimp, with forms such as "ccrimp", "cirmp", and "crimmp". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CRM", "crop", "Cris", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English crimpen (“to be contracted, be drawn together”), from Middle Dutch crimpen, crempen (“to crimp”), from Proto-Germanic *krimpaną (“to shrink, draw back”) (compare related Old English ġecrympan (“to curl”)). Cognate with Dutch krimpen, Ger… The correct English form is crimp, spelled C-R-I-M-P.
Definition
- 1Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
- 2Weak; inconsistent; contradictory.
Etymology
From Middle English crimpen (“to be contracted, be drawn together”), from Middle Dutch crimpen, crempen (“to crimp”), from Proto-Germanic *krimpaną (“to shrink, draw back”) (compare related Old English ġecrympan (“to curl”)). Cognate with Dutch krimpen, German Low German krimpen, Faroese kreppa (“crisis”), and Icelandic kreppa (“to bend tightly, clench”). Compare also derivative Middle English crymplen (“to wrinkle”) and causative crempen (“to turn something back, restrain”, literally “to cause to shrink or draw back”), both ultimately derived from the same root. See also cramp.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccrimp,cirmp,crimmp,crimpp,cripm,crmip,crrimp,rcimp
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of crimp - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “crimp”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-R-I-M-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kɹɪmp/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “CRM” - see the side-by-side comparison. crimp vs CRM
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.