An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/krumm

by Friedrich Kluge

krumm, adjective, ‘crooked,’ from Middle High German krump(b), Old High German chrumb, ‘crooked, curved, twisted, perverted’ (compare kraus); rare variants Old High German and Middle High German krumpf, Old High German chrampf, as well as Middle High German krimpf, in the same sense. Compare Old Saxon crumb, Anglo-Saxon crumb; English crump, ‘crooked,’ is abnormal (with this English to crumple, Middle English crumpeln, and also English crimple, ‘wrinkle, fold,’ are connected). Under Krampf it is shown how the graded and permutated forms are widely ramified; the Teutonic root signified ‘spasmodically contracted, curved.’ Besides the cognates of West Teutonic krumba-, from pre-Teutonic grumpó-, quoted under Krampf, compare the unnasalised Greek γρῦπός, ‘curved, bent’?. Old Irish cromm, Welsh crwm, seem to have been borrowed from Anglo-Saxon.