cramble

noun

1. (plural-normally)A branch that has been broken and blown onto the ground by the wind.

   “After the wind-tempest, when branches lie in crambles upon the clearings and neighbors at far distances phone down the foothills under the mountains to ask if all is well still, the answer is “Yes””

   “These were not your ordinary crambles Boughs and branches broken by the wind.”

   “I shoved into the bottom of the brush pile two large grocery bags holding chainsaw chaff well-soaked in old gasoline gone sticky— a kind of homemade napalm, except, of course, without victims, other than boughs, stumps, broken boards, vines, crambles.”

verb

1. To break apart.

   “Remove this, and the foundation is gone, the superstructure will soon totter, and in less time than was consumed in erecting, will the building cramble to atoms.”

   “Usually she crambles the sand particles with her mandibles and fore legs and sweeps it out backwards through the underside of her abdomen.”

   “A sense of direction, a sense of leadership to give shape to an inertia which crambles in the face of a crises.”

2. To twist and wind irregularly.

   “The yellow Fumitorie hath many crambling threddie rootes, ſomewhat thicke, groſſe, and fat, like thoſe of Aſparagus: from which riſe diuers vpright ſtalkes a cubite high, diuiding themſelues towarde the top into other ſmaller branches, whereon are confuſedly placed leaues like thoſe of Thalictrum or Engliſh Rubarbe, but leſſer and thinner: […]”

   “Juliet, crambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, and also to “tidy herself.””

   “A baby, for instance, however adventurous, does not cramble, I feel sure; nor does ivy, which, as Gerarde puts it, “as it were with armes, creepeth and wandereth far about." Stouthearted Rocket, however, must cramble for its life through chalky, gravelly or stony soil of barren hills, each sturdy rootlet forcing itself along like a burrowing mole.”

   “I could not bear the way they walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed.”

3. To move unsteadily or with difficulty; to hobble.

   “This way is very uncertain; for the Horse finding himself cramp'd, will only draw his Legs after him, and shuffle, unless he be forc'd; and besides, if the Lists are drawn too strait, when they are taken off ; the Sinews will be so numbed, that he will be only capable of crambling and cringing; and moreover it will greatly subject him to the String-halt, and often twitching up his Legs.”

   “And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks, Those two, who cramble on the adjacent rocks, Their faithless hold no longer can retain, They sink o'erwhelm'd! and never rise again!”

   “People now who are in this house who have seen them at Macclesfield say they seem lame with their march and cramble much.”

   “At cockcrow she crambles up " My Master, my customers have refused to pay me."”