Green’s Dictionary of Slang

venereal disease.

1592		John Markham ‘Answer to the Libell against him’ in May & Bryson Verse Libel 102: Have you hadd (with your bawdye actions) the Greencomes, the yellow or black Jaundeys, or the most hated disease called La gran verola?
c.1602		Middleton Family of Love V iii: And for that foul-mouthed disease, termed by a fine phrase – a pox on’t, what d’ye call’t? O, the grincomes – at that he hath played his doctor’s prize.
1607		Dekker & Webster Northward Hoe I i: I [...] neuer had the Grincoms: neuer sold one Maiden-head ten seuerall times.
1618		Dekker Owles Almanacke 49: The crincome, that is Neopolitan.
1622		N. Breton Strange Newes in Works II 9/1: In the valley of Saint Grincums, the great Lord of Lowzie bush, venturing to ride late in the night, and not seeing his way, fell into a deepe bog, where he was so bemir’d, that with a cold after a heate, he caught such a relapse, as that many of his copartners in his passages were greatly afraid that he would fall into a consumption both of bodie and goods.
1622		J. Taylor Whore II iii: Grinkcomes is an Vtopian word, which is in Inglishe a P. at Paris.
1630		J. Taylor ‘Taylors Goose’ in Works (1869) I 105: Luxurious, letcherous Goates, that hunt in Flockes, / To catch the Glangore, Grinkums, or the Pockes.
1631		S. Marmion Holland’s Leaguer IV ii: I have the grincums in my back, crincums, grincomes I fear Will spoil my courtship.
1633		Massinger Guardian IV iii: The comfort is I am now secure from the Grincomes, I can lose nothing that way.
1640		H. Mill Nights Search letter by Bradwell: I never in my life was in a Stews: Nor ever visited a house of sinne, Unlesse to cure the grinkhams they were in.
1654		New Brawle 13: Thy Nose is consum’d by the Crinkums.
1661		K.W. Confused Characters (1860) 21: He gets the French cranckums, and so knows what it is to have a tenure in taile.
1663		Jack Adams his perpetual almanack (2 edn) 27: If he frequented with Whores he might chance to catch the Grinkums.
1678		S. Butler Hudibras Pt III canto 1 lines 701–3: Jealousie is but a kind Of Clap, and Grincam of the mind, The Natural effect of Love.
1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 88: He has been at Haddam. He has got the Crinkhams.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 587: [He must] cohabit with a new-cast female: for thus they caught that fifth kind of crinckams, which some call Pellade [...] that makes them cast off their old hair and skin, just as the Serpents do.
1708		French King’s Wedding 3: [She] leaves the Crinkums as a Badge of her Favour.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 312: Let the Palsie shake ye, let the Cholick rack ye, let the Crinkums break ye, let the Murrain take ye.
1722		N. Ward Parish Gutt’lers in Misc. IV: [He] lamely hobbles to his place, As if ... the Crinkums had diseas’d him.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: crinkums the foul Disease.
1732		Harlot’s Progress 9: Till with the Crinkrams Sib was rotten, / And by her humble Slaves forgotten.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Crinkums, the foul or venereal disease.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.