How Russians embraced the word ‘cringe’

‘Cringe’ was first spotted in the Russian language back in 2019, spelled ‘кринж’ (‘krindzh’). But, it has become widespread in recent years. ‘Cringe’ is so firmly entrenched in modern Russian youth slang that it even received a new pronunciation variant: ‘krin-ge’ (as if the English spelling was literally read in Russian).

This word was even transformed into the new part of speech in Russian: the adjective ‘кринжовый’ (‘krinzhovy’), which means that something is cringe, or the verb ‘кринжануть’ (‘krinzhanut’), which means that someone felt cringey.

“The active word formation around ‘cringe’ has proven that the word has been russified and has literally penetrated all levels of the language,” says Valery Shulginov, linguist and author of Gramota.ru (Грамота.ру).

Moreover, this word can already be found in the headlines of reputable media and not only on social media chats.