different between crumb vs pinch
crumb
English
Alternative forms
- crimb (dialectal)
Etymology
From Middle English crome, cromme, crumme, crume, from Old English cruma (“crumb, fragment”), from Proto-Germanic *krumô, *kr?mô (“fragment, crumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *gr?-mo- (“something scraped together, lumber, junk; to claw, scratch”), from *ger- (“to turn, bend, twist, wind”). The b is excrescent, as in limb and climb, appearing in the mid 15th century to match crumble and words like dumb, numb, thumb. Cognate with Dutch kruim (“crumb”), Low German Krome, Krume (“crumb”), German Krume (“crumb”), Danish krumme (“crumb”), Swedish dialectal krumma (“crumb”), Swedish inkråm (“crumbs, giblets”), Icelandic krumur (“crumb”), Latin gr?mus (“a little heap”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /k??m/
- Rhymes: -?m
Noun
crumb (countable and uncountable, plural crumbs)
- A small piece which breaks off from baked food (such as cake, biscuit or bread).
- desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table
- At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
- A small piece of other material, such as rubber.
- 2012, Caroline Joy Adams, An Italic Calligraphy Handbook (page 79)
- Then erase any pencil lines with a good, soft eraser, rubbing gently, in only one direction. A dustbrush can be useful in removing any eraser crumbs.
- 2012, Caroline Joy Adams, An Italic Calligraphy Handbook (page 79)
- (figuratively) A bit, small amount.
- The soft internal portion of bread, surrounded by crust.
- 1861, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford
- Dust unto dust, what must be, must; / If you can't get crumb, you'd best eat crust.
- 1861, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford
- A mixture of sugar, cocoa and milk, used to make industrial chocolate.
- (slang) A nobody; a worthless person.
- 1999, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Alice on the Outside (page 146)
- All Dad can think of is a gift certificate from the Melody Inn? And my crumb of a boyfriend doesn't even show up? This is a birthday?
- 1999, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Alice on the Outside (page 146)
- (slang) A body louse (Pediculus humanus).
Synonyms
- (crumbled food): crumbling
- (small amount): see also Thesaurus:modicum.
Derived terms
Related terms
- crumble
- crumpet
- crumbum
Translations
Verb
crumb (third-person singular simple present crumbs, present participle crumbing, simple past and past participle crumbed)
- (transitive) To cover with crumbs.
- (transitive) To break into crumbs or small pieces with the fingers; to crumble.
- to crumb bread
Derived terms
- crumbed
Related terms
- crumple
Translations
crumb From the web:
- what crumbles
- what crumbles down
- what crumble means
- what crumbs mean
- what crumbs can you make
- what's crumb coating a cake
- what's crumb cake
pinch
English
Etymology
From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (“to pinch”), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (“to puncture, pinch”), from possible merger of *puncti?re (“a puncture, sting”), from Latin puncti? (“a puncture, prick”) and *picc?re (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (“to pick, peck, prick”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /p?nt?/
- Rhymes: -?nt?
Verb
pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)
- To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
- The children were scolded for pinching each other.
- This shoe pinches my foot.
- To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
- To squeeze between two objects.
- (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.
- Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
- (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
- (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
- (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
- (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
- (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)
- 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper
- the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare
- To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
- (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.
- to be pinched for money
- c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War
- want of room […] which pincheth the whole nation
- 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:
- The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.
- To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
- (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
- 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":
- Therefore who so them accuse
- Of any double entencion,
- To speake, rowne, other to muse,
- To pinch at their condicion,
- All is but false collusion,
- I dare rightwell the sothe express,
- They have no better protection,
- But shrowd them vnder doubleness.
- 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":
Derived terms
- pinch off
- pinch out
- pinch a loaf
Translations
Noun
pinch (plural pinches)
- The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
- A close compression of anything with the fingers.
- I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.
- A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
- An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
- 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:
- It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.
- 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:
- A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
- An organic herbal smoke additive.
- (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
- The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
- 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:
- It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.
- 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:
- (slang) An arrest.
Derived terms
Descendants
- ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)
Translations
pinch From the web:
- what pinche means
- what pinches a nerve
- what pinches the sciatic nerve
- what pincher bugs eat
- what pinched nerve causes numbness in arm
- what pinched nerve feels like
- what pinched nerve causes numbness in fingers
- what pinched nerve causes numbness in toes
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