Have a view that you would be embarrassed if you held or reasonable opinions that are expressed in a rather embarrassing manner. For some reason, it has become a popular word to describe people who fall into one of the following.
Recently, social media has caused “cringe” to have somewhat of a resurgence. The embarrassment that you didn’t feel at the time hits you like a ton of bricks upon rewatching.Īnd finally, when a comedian tries to be funny but fails, you might describe them as “cringey”. You might also find it “cringey” to watch videos of yourself when you were younger. This made many of the viewers feel embarrassed on his behalf at just how terribly the interview went. In this interview, Andrew accidentally made it evident that he was engaged in behaviour that he should not have been engaged in. The first one that pops to mind is the recent interview with Andrew Edward, talking to BBC reporter Emily Mattis. Now for the fun part, let’s take a look at some examples of people being cringey. “Cringan” is a word that we got from the Proto-Germanic “Krant”, which meant to bend or curl up.ĭespite “Cringe” being a relatively old part of our language, the adjective “cringey” is a new addition. The word “Cringe” comes from the Old English “Cringan”, which means to yield, give way, or fall in battle. We’ve been invaded a lot, we’ve traded a lot, and our language has evolved naturally over time. Origin of the word “cringey”Īs many of you will know from our previous articles, the English Language is a weird combination of several different languages from around the world. Perhaps when writing a formal document, “cringe worthy” will be better to use than “cringey”. Despite being in the dictionary, “Cringey” is a relatively new entry. If you’re talking to people of the older generations, many of them will say “cringe worthy” rather than “cringey”. In this case, we are combining the words “cringe” and “worthy”. Some people claim that “Cringey” is a portmanteau.įor those of you who won’t know, a portmanteau is when you combine two words to create one. That was when I realised I wasn’t wearing my coat in the snow”. Meaning beggars are super needy and polite to get money from people.Īnd finally, “cringing” can be an involuntary reaction to cold or pain. “Cringe” can also mean to behave in an overly humble way, for example, “beggars cringe tourists for money”. To cringe can mean to shrink in terror, for example, an author might say someone “cringed in the corner when confronted by the killer”. But other meanings are not too prevalent in our everyday speech but are still correct to use. If someone does something “cringey”, they do something so embarrassing, it causes you to get embarrassed on their behalf. We imagine how embarrassing this must be for the other person, and the level of humiliation is so high that we can almost feel it ourselves. This is something that we do by impulse when we feel second-hand embarrassment. The verb “cringe” means to “recoil in distaste”. In less formal situations, you could use the term “cringe” as an adjective in place of “cringey”.
If something is cringey, it causes you to cringe.
I find it very irresponsible that Google is promoting information that every dictionary disagrees with.
Look in Google, Oxford, Cambridge, Mac Milan, Merriam Webster, or any other dictionary that you find online. You will find that the correct spelling is “cringey”. If you type “Cringey or Cringy” into Google, the first result will be a snippet from a website called “Preply” which will tell you the correct term is “Cringy”. But today, I’m going to have to tell someone e off, that someone is Google! I’m usually the type of person who likes to give praise where I can. Watch the video: Only 1 percent of our visitors get these 3 grammar questions right.