Forms: 1 crypel, 3–4 crupel(ü), 4 cruppel, crepil, -ul, 4–5 cripel, -il, 4–7 crepel, 5 crypylle, crebull, 5–6 crepell, -ill, -yl(le, 6 crippil, crypple, crepple, -ell, 6–7 creeple, creple, criple, 7 creaple. 7– cripple. [OE. crypel (known only in Lindisf. Gosp.) = OFris. kreppel, MDu. cröpel, crēpel, Du. kreupel; MLG. krōpel, krēpel, LG. kröpel; MHG. krüppel, krüpel, MG. 11th c. crupel (from LG.), Ger. kruppel, dial. krippel; ON. kryppill, Norw. krypel; all:—OTeut. *krupilo-, f. krup- ablaut stem of kriupan to CREEP; either in the sense of one who can only creep, or perhaps rather in that of one who is, in Scottish phrase, ‘cruppen together,’ i.e., contracted in body and limbs.]
A. sb. 1. One who is disabled (either from birth, or by accident or injury) from the use of his limbs; a lame person.
c. 950. Lindisf. Gosp., Luke v. 24. Cuoeð ðæm cryple … aris.
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 51/157. Tweie crupeles þat in heore limes al fur-crokede were.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 1458. It is ful hard to halten unespied Bifor a crepul, for he kan the craft.
1480. Caxton, Chron. Eng., cci. 182. God hath yeuen therto to crepels hir goyng and to croked hir hondes.
1586. A. Day, Eng. Secretary, II. (1625), 22. Of ancient time it hath often been said, that it is ill halting before a Creple.
1611. Bible, Acts xiv. 8. And there sate a certaine man at Lystra, impotent in his feete, being a creeple from his mothers wombe, who neuer had walketh.
1684. Bunyan, Pilgr., II. Introd. 229. These strings … will such Musick make, They’l make a Cripple dance.
1747. Wesley, Prim. Physick (1762), 93. One who was quite a Cripple, having no strength left either in his Leg, Thigh, or Loins.
1865. Trollope, Belton Est., xiii. 142. A poor cripple, unable to walk beyond the limits of her own garden.
2. techn. a. = Cripple-gap (see 5), where app. cripple = ‘creeping.’ b. A temporary staging used in cleaning or painting windows: cf. CRADLE.
1648. A. Eyre, Diary (Surtees), 106. He opened a cripple and putt his sheepe on to the Newfield.
1887. Even. News, 11 May, 3/6. The jury … recommended the use of ladders, or of the recognised machine known as a ‘cripple.’
3. U.S. (local.) a. A dense thicket in swampy or low-lying ground. b. A lumberman’s term for a rocky shallow in a stream.
1705. in Corr. Penn & Logan, I. 234. About 300 acres, near 100 upland, the rest swamp and cripple that high tides flow over.
4. slang. A sixpence. Cf. BENDER 6.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Cripple, six pence, that piece being commonly much bent and distorted.
1885. Househ. Words, 20 June, 155 (Farmer). The sixpence … is called a bandy, a ‘bender,’ a cripple.
5. Comb., as cripple-lame adj.; cripple-gap, -hole (dial.), see quot. and cf. 2 a; cripple-stopper (colloq.), a small gun for killing wounded birds in wild-fowl shooting.
1595. Markham, Sir R. Grinvile, lix. Dismembred bodies perish cripple-lame.
1847–78. Halliwell, Cripple-gap, a hole left in walls for sheep to pass through. North. Also called a cripple-hole.
1881. Greener, Gun, 553. Armed with a big shoulder-gun and a ‘cripple-stopper.’
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 24 Aug., 4/2. The Crane gun … being used with ball and slugs for … cripple-stopping.
B. adj. Disabled from the use of one’s limbs; lame. Obs. or dial., exc. in attrib. use of prec.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 33. Beo he cangun oðer crupel.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 22829 (Gött.). Ani man … crepil or croked.
1535. Coverdale, Matt. xviii. 8. It is better for ye to entre in vnto life lame or crepell.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., IV. Prol. 20. And chide the creeple tardy-gated Night, Who … doth limpe So tediously away.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, Wks. (1711), 56. That criple folk walk not upright.
c. 1860. Whittier, Hill-top, viii. My poor sick wife, and cripple boy.
