(v. t.) To draw one's self together as in fear or servility; to bend or crouch with base humility; to wince; hence; to make court in a degrading manner; to fawn.
(v. t.) To contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort.
(n.) Servile civility; fawning; a shrinking or bowing, as in fear or servility.
Example Sentences:
(1) One test he passed: he could say he loved his country, its values and its spirit without causing a toe-curling cringe.
(2) Inequality, precarity and social division are the causes of our new callousness, helped by the rightwing press, but the real point is that Labour has only two choices in response: either continue to cringe before the prejudices of the public or try to change their minds by arguing for a distinct, simple and compelling alternative.
(3) They cringed even more when I used the word “psychosomatic”.
(4) There’s no doubt there are large swaths within the industry who are committed to overturning this divisive hostility towards women, just as there are men who cringe at the term “brogrammer”.
(5) Second-chance Sunday in Gosford In truth, Justin Pasfield’s calamitous goalkeeping against Newcastle last week was about as cringe-worthy as his new hipster beard-haircut combination.
(6) But there are other dimensions to the Games that should be embraced without cringing.
(7) – rather than on the man’s indecent entitlement, grubbiness and criminality.” 'These women are not statistics' – deaths in Australia in 2015 Read more Surely Lay would cringe, then, at comments made by Victorian homicide squad head, detective inspector Mick Hughes, following the brutal and seemingly random killing of 17-year-old schoolgirl, Masa Vukotic, in broad daylight while she was out walking as part of her usual exercise routine.
(8) It also prompted a collective cringe from many in the Republican political establishment, which is now facing the prospect of losing control of the Senate and even the House because of the drag faced by down-ballot candidates campaigning into the headwinds of their presidential nominee.
(9) As baffling as it may be to those of us whose approach to music festivals is to wear the same clothes for the whole weekend, and to think anyone who bothers brushing their teeth is just trying to be fancy, somehow festivals have become – and I cringe so hard as I write this phrase – "trendsetters".
(10) I cringe when I hear our political leadership deliver yet another speech extolling a commitment to fighting extremism, yet in almost the time it takes to draw their next breath, go on to announce cuts to community services groups, the kind of organisations whose roles are vital in addressing the risk factors that leave one vulnerable to extremism.
(11) … You’re going to get what I think, whether you like it or not, whether it makes you cringe every once in a while or not.” Decrying “bickering leaders in Washington DC”, Christie held out his record as a fiscally conservative governor with a record early in his tenure of bipartisan victories as evidence of change he could bring to the national capital.
(12) The composer Charles Ives, for instance, spent his whole career in a sort of cringe, fearfully anticipating the accusation that to make music was a “sissy” activity.
(13) Sometimes I cringe at the lack of awareness of problems they’re causing other road users.
(14) Electrical stimulation of the superior colliculus in rats elicits not only orienting movements, as it does in other mammals, but also behaviours resembling such natural defensive responses as prolonged freezing, cringing, shying, and fast running and jumping.
(15) Nonetheless, some of Bashir's voters' views must be hard to stomach: informed that one of his voters had just told the Guardian that they were voting for Ukip "because Enoch Powell was right," he failed to suppress a cringe before saying: "The world is full of people of different persuasions.
(16) I cringed when I watched Abedin defend her husband Anthony Weiner in a press conference, as he asked New York City voters to support his campaign for mayor in spite of news reports of another sexting affair.
(17) Surely executives will hesitate to begin each sentence with bizarre jargon or a name-dropped reference to "Tony", now that they've cringed when Simon Harwood, Director of Strategic Governance, does it.
(18) People in my family cringe.” It’s too early to determine what impact Trump’s proposal will have, says Ackles, but he expects to hear more about hedge funds in the coming weeks.
(19) The shadow treasury team's response to Clegg's wealth tax proposal was an infantile ya-boo of the kind that makes voters cringe: "Nick Clegg is once again taking the British people for fools.
(20) I felt the mild elation and giggly cringe of executing a well-designed violent manoeuvre in a video game.
Flinch
Definition:
(v. i.) To withdraw from any suffering or undertaking, from pain or danger; to fail in doing or perserving; to show signs of yielding or of suffering; to shrink; to wince; as, one of the parties flinched from the combat.
(v. i.) To let the foot slip from a ball, when attempting to give a tight croquet.
(n.) The act of flinching.
Example Sentences:
(1) These findings could not be attributed to changes in flinch threshold as neither treatment nor time affected this measure.
(2) I noticed one of them hit him I don’t know where, but I saw him flinch,” Wilson said.
(3) Lesions of the central nucleus also decreased reactivity to shock (jumping and flinching) during shock presentation.
(4) She did not flinch when hostage-takers took over the Iranian embassy; most were killed by the SAS.
(5) Based on the mean thresholds obtained from a flinch-jump test, 8 rats were tested in a startle inhibition procedure with prestimulus intensities of 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mA.
(6) Our forebears never flinched from modernising the Conservative party, so why should we?
(7) Burnham said that broadcasters cannot "flinch" from the need to look after contestants.
(8) Publication of the Prince Charles 'black spider' letters: live Read more But Kristina Kyriacou, the royal’s top media adviser, barely flinched when duty called as her protectee was confronted by the dogged Channel 4 reporter Michael Crick on Tuesday.
(9) In a second experiment it was observed that neither the shock-induced flinch nor the jump threshold was elevated after nigral lesions, suggesting that these lesions do not decrease the aversive motivational properties of foot shock.
(10) No change in the flinch-jump threshold was detected.
(11) Microinjections of morphine (10 microgram) at both sites significantly elevated the threshold of response in the flinch-jump test; but only at medial sites did naloxone (1 microgram) antagonise this effect.
(12) striker Clint Dempsey’s upcoming debut rap album , The Redux, choice rhymes including: “My game face won’t never flinch, “I’m beast mode, Marshawn Lynch.” O FIVERÃO LETTERS “We’ve all been there with Mario Balotelli (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs).
(13) This is the first time he even flinched, he smiled, went to mutter something, thought better of it and just carried on reading the paper.
(14) According to this hypothesis, the failure of these teratments to disrupt escape responding may be due to the fact that the unconditioned stimulus generates reflexive motor responses (flinch, jump, etc.)
(15) We know that when danger arrived in the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary, the school's staff did not flinch.
(16) For the coverage that I am getting – the fact that it covers previous conditions, the fact that it doesn’t flinch at cancer treatments, the fact that my copays are reasonable and the pharmacy prescription requirements allow me to get the drugs I need – it’s a remarkable bargain.
(17) When it emerged that Jeremy Corbyn’s first act as leader was to go to the pub and sing the Red Flag , bankers flinched and Tories sneered, yet it was no surprise to me.
(18) Nociceptive thresholds were measured by the flinch-jump test.
(19) Now the sleeves are rolled up for the business of telling the press his party will flinch from any coalition with Ukip or the Scots.
(20) After both players tussled, mutually kicking out, television replays suggested Cissé was complaining Evans had spat in his eye but other images showing the United centre-half flinching indicated that this was far from one-sided.