Crinkum

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Describing something full of twists, bends and elaborate turns, such as a winding path or a convoluted design
2. Referring to an intricate, zigzagging arrangement of parts that is more complicated than it needs to be
3. Characterizing a tangled, winding or needlessly elaborate form, often used playfully in phrases like crinkum-crankum

Etymology: "Crinkum-crankum" is the full form, and it is a reduplicated phrase: the first part, "crinkum," is a variant of "crinkle," and the second, "crankum," echoes "crank," a bend or twist in a mechanism. The pairing is what gives the word its jingling, mock-serious sound, and "crinkum" on its own survives mainly as the first half of that pair. The word is recorded in the 17th century, and it belongs to a family of English reduplications built on a simple sound change, such as "higgledy-piggledy" and "helter-skelter." Its formation is characteristic of humorous or playful English, where a pair of rhyming or alliterating syllables adds emphasis and a touch of mockery. Its sense is literal before it is figurative. "Crinkle" describes a zigzag or wrinkle, and a "crank" is a bent or angled part of a machine, so the phrase first named things with many bends and turns, then extended to any arrangement that is needlessly convoluted.