sb. (a.) Also crincum-crancum. A word applied playfully to anything full of twists and turns, or intricately or fancifully elaborated. Cf. gim-crack, knick-knack.
In first quot. app. a meaningless euphemism (cf. prec.). In quot. 1761 = CRINKLE-CRANKLE.
[16[?]. Old Rime, in Blount, Law Dict., 1670 s.v. Free-bench, Here I am … Like a Whore as I am. And for my Crincum Crancum Have lost my Binkum Bankum.]
1761. Colman & Garrick, Cland. Marriage, II. ii. (L.). Here’s none of your straight lines here—but all taste—zigzag—crinkum-crankum—in and out.
1778. Miss Burney, Evelina (1794), I. 105. We shall see some crinkum-crankum or other for our money.
1793. Burns, Lett. to Thomson, Aug. That crinkum-crankum tune, ‘Robin Adair.’
1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, 103. All sorts of engine-turning, and filagree-work, and crinkum-crankum.
1864. Sat. Rev., 10 Dec., 731/2. Those scientific crinkum-crankum hives, from which bees with difficulty get out, and with more difficulty get in.
