Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also crippo) a disabled person.

1893		O. Wister diary 21 Feb. in Wister Owen Wister Out West (1958) 153: A man lame from being shot in the leg is ‘Crip’ Jones.
1906		A. Adams ‘Bad Medicine’ Cattle Brands 🌐 [of cattle] when the rear guard of crips and dogies passed this impromptu review, we all waited patiently for the verdict.
1929		R. Bradford This Side of Jordan 2: They regarded old Aunt Crippled Lou with sympathy [...] Aunt Crip understood the bayou.
1932		J.C. Rogers ‘South’ in Botkin Folk-Say 151: He was a crip and couldn’t do any work.
1940		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 30 Nov. 10/6: ‘Big Time’ Crip, world-famed one-legged dancer.
1955		‘Hal Ellson’ Rock 5: I don’t want to fight this crip.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 51: Little Crip, small, dark and crippled from birth, came tearing down the block.
1976		H. Selby Jr Demon (1979) 10: He cant see Steve. Letim hitit, his a crip.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 331: How’d dem crips get the jack inside?
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 59: Having to ask polite questions of grovelling mongrels, half-breeds, half-wits, crippos.
2003		M. Haddon Curious Incident of the Dog 56: People used to call [...] the children at school spaz and crip and mong.

2. (orig. US campus, also cript) anything easy; esp. in crip course, of a given college course [note crib n.³ (4)].

1926		University of Virginia Mag. Oct. 16f: Crip has about driven snap into oblivion [...] probably [...] the word came into collegiate use via the poolroom [W&F].
1959		L.P. Boone ‘Gator Sl.’ AS XXXIV:2 156: A crip is an easy course.
1961		C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 134: The sixball had interrupted a crip, it being an easy straight-back or cross-corner.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 101: Crip course Easy course.
1977		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 2: crip course – an easy course.
1981		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 3: crip – easy: Man, we’ve got four tests and a paper. I thought you said this was a crip course.
1983		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: crip(t) – easy. English 36 is going to be my best cript.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 47: The phrase crip course had been well established in college slang for decades, formed as a clipping of a cripples’ course, or perhaps a crippled course.

3. a wounded animal.

1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 130/2: crip n. A crippled horse.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 92: The crip [i.e. a rat] glared venemously at me and bared yellow fangs.

4. (UK juv.) a general insult; physical deformity is irrelevant.

1967		Current Sl. II:2 9: Crip, n. An uncoordinated person, a ‘spas.’.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 crip n. An excessively clumsy, stupid or unpleasant person.