Crapsey

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet of the early twentieth century known for developing the five-line cinquain form
2. The American writer Adelaide Crapsey, who lived from 1878 to 1914, is remembered chiefly for her short unrhymed verse in the cinquain pattern
3. A surname belonging to Adelaide Crapsey, the American poet celebrated for pioneering the brief cinquain form of verse

Etymology: "Crapsey" is an English surname, and the source offers only one lead: that the word may be a variant of "Cripsey," itself a surname form. Surnames like this often began as a regional or family name, so the spelling shifts between "Crapsey" and "Cripsey" would be typical of how such names were written down by different clerks and in different places over time. Because the only etymological suggestion available points to a variant of "Cripsey," the most direct reading is that "Crapsey" is a spelling variant of that name rather than a word with a separate meaning of its own. Beyond that link, nothing firm can be said about its origin or first recorded use.