cramped
1 Americanadjective
adjective
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confined or severely limited in space.
cramped closets.
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(of handwriting) with characters written small and crowded together.
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(of a style of writing) hard to understand; crabbed.
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adjective
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closed in; restricted
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(esp of handwriting) small and irregular; difficult to read
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cramped1
First recorded in 1670–80; cramp 1 + -ed 3
Origin of cramped2
Explanation
A place that's cramped is uncomfortably small or crowded, like a cramped elevator with one too many riders or a cramped subway car at rush hour. This adjective comes from the verb cramp, "to restrict." When you're in a cramped situation, your movement is restricted in some way, often because there are too many people standing too close together, or simply because the space is too small. You might have a bedroom all to yourself, but if it's the size of a closet, you'll still feel cramped in there.
Vocabulary lists containing cramped
Lesson 11
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Words to Describe Places
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The report said observers witnessed prisoners voting in cramped quarters that didn’t allow for privacy and having to hand their ballots to others to put in the box.
From Salon • May 6, 2026
But under the big open skies and cramped spaces of their eastward journey in a faulty car, traveling between what we glean is a tough past and a hoped-for future, we know something’s off.
From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026
For evacuees like Ramon Adino, 68, who is living in a cramped school classroom with 12 other families, a return to "normal life" is now just a matter of waiting.
From Barron's • Apr. 30, 2026
Roughly half a million people pass each day through this cramped, dingy catacomb beneath Madison Square Garden.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 22, 2026
Just like that, the big bus cramped full of other people’s lives hadn’t seemed so bad anymore.
From "The Science of Breakable Things" by Tae Keller
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
