WRITER'S CRAMP • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Writer's cramp

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/rˈaɪtərz kræmp/ Listen

noun

Writer n.

One who writes, or has written; a scribe; a clerk. "They (came) that handle the pen of the writer." "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer."

One who is engaged in literary composition as a profession; an author; as, a writer of novels. "This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile."

A clerk of a certain rank in the service of the late East India Company, who, after serving a certain number of years, became a factor.

Writer of the tallies (Eng. Law), an officer of the exchequer of England, who acted as clerk to the auditor of the receipt, and wrote the accounts upon the tallies from the tellers' bills. The use of tallies in the exchequer has been abolished.

Writer's cramp, Writer's palsy or Writer's spasm (Med.), a painful spasmodic affection of the muscles of the fingers, brought on by excessive use, as in writing, violin playing, telegraphing, etc. Called also scrivener's palsy.

Writer to the signet. See under Signet.

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Etymology of 'Writer's cramp'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Writer's cramp" Quotes from Famous Books

... my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon, working with feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a critical illness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paid bills until I had writer's cramp from signing checks, read over my will, and paid up my life insurance, made to the benefit of an elderly sister of my mother's. I no longer dreaded arrest. After that morning in the station, I felt that anything would be a relief from the tension. I went home with perfect openness, courting ...

— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... thus, which must have caused greater muscular labour in execution. Let any one try the two methods for himself. Dickens was fond of flourishes, as witness his first published autograph, under the portrait which was issued with Nicholas Nickleby (1839). Some evidence of "writer's cramp," as it is termed, appears where the C in Charles becomes almost a G, and where the line-like flourishes to the signature thirty years later, under the portrait forming the frontispiece to Edwin Drood, are much shorter and less elaborate. All the earlier manuscripts are in black ink—the characteristic ...

— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... always practise softly until the voice be well formed, when it will be easy to increase the volume of sound. Constant shouting causes the muscles of the larynx to lose their contractile power, and a condition is brought about which is analogous to writer's cramp. Sometimes no voice can be produced, while at others it is given forth in a series of uncontrollable jerks. Singers deficient in resonance, and who have not acquired the best use and control of the various parts of the resonator, resort to the objectionable practice of forcing their voices, ...

— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke