cramp

/kræmp/

/kræmp/

Other forms: cramped; cramps; cramping

When a muscle in your body tenses up painfully, it's a cramp. If you get a cramp in your leg when you're swimming, you have to stop and stretch out the muscle until the cramp goes away.

Muscle cramps are a side effect of exercise and fatigue, and they can often be avoided by stretching before and after a run or a game of basketball. Cramp is also a verb, meaning both "contract painfully," and also "hold back, or prevent free movement." This is what you mean when you say, "Mom, please don't walk me in to school — you'll cramp my style."

Definitions of cramp

1. noun

   a painful and involuntary muscular contraction
   synonyms: muscle spasm, spasm

   types:

   charley horse, charley-horse

   a muscular cramp (especially in the thigh or calf) following vigorous exercise

   graphospasm, writer's cramp

   muscular spasms of thumb and forefinger while writing with a pen or pencil

   blepharospasm

   spasm of the eyelid muscle resulting in closure of the eye

   crick, kink, rick, wrick

   a painful muscle spasm especially in the neck or back (`rick' and `wrick' are British)

   myoclonus

   a clonic spasm of a muscle or muscle group

   opisthotonos

   severe spasm in which the back arches and the head bends back and heels flex toward the back

   twitch, twitching, vellication

   a sudden muscle spasm; especially one caused by a nervous condition

   tenesmus

   painful spasm of the anal sphincter along with an urgent desire to defecate without the significant production of feces; associated with irritable bowel syndrome

   trismus

   prolonged spasm of the jaw muscles

   tic

   a local and habitual twitching especially in the face

   blepharism

   condition in which a person blinks continuously

   fibrillation

   muscular twitching involving individual muscle fibers acting without coordination

   fasciculation

   muscular twitching of contiguous groups of muscle fibers

   type of:

   symptom

   (medicine) any sensation or change in bodily function that is experienced by a patient and is associated with a particular disease
2. verb

   suffer from sudden painful contraction of a muscle
   type of:

   get, have, suffer, sustain

   undergo (as of injuries and illnesses)
3. verb

   affect with or as if with a cramp
   type of:

   affect

   act physically on; have an effect upon
4. noun

   a clamp for holding pieces of wood together while they are glued
   type of:

   clamp, clinch

   a device (generally used by carpenters) that holds things firmly together
5. noun

   a strip of metal with ends bent at right angles; used to hold masonry together
   synonyms: cramp iron

   type of:

   slip, strip

   artifact consisting of a narrow flat piece of material
6. verb

   secure with a cramp
   “cramp the wood”

   type of:

   fasten, fix, secure

   cause to be firmly attached
7. verb

   prevent the progress or free movement of
   synonyms: halter, hamper, strangle

   type of:

   bound, confine, limit, restrain, restrict, throttle, trammel

   place limits on (extent or access)