cringen

English cringe

cringen (weak or irregular weak, third-person singular present cringt, past tense cringte, past participle gecringt or gecringed, auxiliary haben)

1. (youth slang) to cringe
   • 2023 January 30, Uli Hannemann, “WDR und Klamroths Beziehung: Hart unfair”, in Die Tageszeitung: taz‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Wie kann man sich da als CDU, SPD oder Rundfunkrat ein derart windschiefes Argumentationshäuschen zusammenzimmern, bei dessen Anblick sich noch das dümmste der drei kleinen Schweinchen schier zu Tode cringen würde: […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• As with other verbs of English origin where ⟨a⟩, ⟨i⟩ correspond to [ɛɪ̯], [aɪ̯], the conjugated forms commonly (but unofficially) retain the -e- (as in er *cringet, sie *cringete etc.).

• German verbs borrowed from English can optionally form the past participle (Partizip II) in -ed in two cases^[1]
  1. The English verb ends in a silent ⟨e⟩:

     English like → German liken → geliked (previously only gelikt)

  2. The verb's past participle is usually not inflected:

     English relax → German relaxen → relaxed (previously only relaxt)

• But -ed- is not permitted when the participle is inflected, thus:

  meine gelikten Bilder (not meine *gelikeden Bilder)

  ein relaxter Abend (not ein *relaxeder Abend)

• cringe
• Cringe

• “cringen”, in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache‎^[2] (in German)

From Old Dutch *kringan, from Proto-Germanic *kringaną.

cringen

1. (intransitive) to turn oneself (in a direction)
2. (intransitive) to turn away

• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929), “cringen”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN