Obs. exc. dial. Also 6 crambil, 9 dial. crammel, -le. [Actual origin obscure: in form app. a freq. and dim. from stem cramb-: see CRAM. Analogous forms, but none of them exactly corresponding in form and sense, are Ger. krammeln to grope or clutch about, to finger; Ger. and E.Fris. krimmeln to crawl, krabbeln to crawl, move with all fours, or with many limbs as an insect, to grope with the fingers, clamber, scramble up. Cf. also SCRAMBLE.]
† 1. intr. To creep about with many turns and twists: said of roots, stems, etc. Obs.
1570. Levins, Manip., 126/42. To crambil, reptitare.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, I. xvi. 19. [It] hath many crooked and crambling rootes of a woody substance, very like unto the right Cyperus. Ibid., I. xviii. 24. Also the root crambleth … hither and thither. Ibid., II. cxlix. 431. Armes or braunches crambling or leaning toward the grounde.
2. Of persons or animals: To crawl, hobble, walk lamely, decrepitly, stiffly or feebly. (Still used in north. Eng. dialects down to Cheshire and Lincolnshire.)
1617. Markham, Caval., IV. 11. The gathering of the foales legges makes it cramble with the hinder parts, and goe both crookedly and ill-fauouredly.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1638), 190. Up which defatigating hill we crambled with no small difficulty.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., Crammel or Cramble, to walk ill, as with corns on the feet, to hobble.
1869. Lonsdale Gloss., Cramble, to hobble or creep. Crammle, to crawl on the hands and knees.
1877. Holderness Gloss., Crammle, to walk feebly or lamely: ‘Poor awd man, he can hardly crammle.’
1877. N. W. Linc. Gloss., Cramble, to move as though the joints were stiff.
1884. Cheshire Gloss., Cramble, to hobble (Macclesfield.)
3. trans. (See quot.) Cf. CRAM, CRAMP.
1883. Huddersfield Gloss., Crammle, to twitch, or squeeze into a small compass. Thus a shoe is crammled down at the heel.
