Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a swindler, a cheat.

1774		Foote Cozeners (1778) 6: Then there is the crimp’s money, for procuring the company an able recruit.
c.1790		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Sir Joseph Banks & the Emperor of Morocco’ Works (1794) II 198: Cupid’s trusty crimp, By mouths of vulgar people christen’d pimp, Stares on his honourable fee, a crown.
1797		‘T.B. Junr’ Pettyfogger Dramatized I i: An Attorney might as well be without a Country-house as a Bailiff without a follower, a Crimp without his decoy girls.
1800		P. Colquhoun Commerce and Police of the River Thames 522: Crimps [...] profess to procure Seamen for outward bound ships [...] Strangers decline this mode of seeking Justice. The Crimps are aware of this, and continue their Impositions and Frauds with impunity.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 26: Slopmen, Mud-larkers and Crimps.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 177: Crimp — Kidnappers, Trappers, or Procurers of men for the Merchant Service; and the East-India Company contract with them for a supply of sailors to navigate their ships out and home. These are for the most part Jews, who have made advances to the sailors of money, clothes, victuals, and lodgings, generally to a very small amount, taking care to charge an enormous price for every article. The poor fellows, by these means, are placed under a sort of espionage, if not close confinement, till the ship is ready to receive them.
1837		‘Terence O’Shaughnessy’ in Bentley’s Misc. Jan. 37: The whole was the plan of a crimp.
1840		Marryat Poor Jack 157: We were a man short, and the captain went on shore to get one from the crimps.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 15 Nov. 2/6: [headline] A Female Crimp.
1857		J.E. Ritchie Night Side of London 69: A crimp [...] charged with having taken into his possession the money and effects of James Hall.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America I 55: The bounty-jumpers, the crimps, the dry goods drummers.
1874		‘A.P.’ [Arthur Pember] Mysteries and Miseries 4: [A] charge brought by a fine-looking young sailor [...] against a boarding-house crimp for assault. It appeared that the crimp had been endeavoring to fleece the sailor, and, finding that his rapacious demands were not likely to be complied with, had coolly knocked him down.
1888		W.B. Churchward Blackbirding In The South Pacific 19: That scamp of a mate sold us to a crimp.
1896		M. Williams Round London 75: Boarding-house touts, crimps, outfitters, runners, and other rapacious beasts of prey.
1900		Sun. Times (Sydney) 14 Jan. 1/1: They Say [...] That the conviction of a crimp ought to act as a warning to others.
1904		Marvel 12 Nov. 13: It was an old riverside public-house called the Parrot, full of crimps and pickpockets.
1911		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 Sept. 1/4: They’re singing the Five-Starred Flag to Chows / To Chows and the slinking Jap / [...] / The bribe of a monkey-man’s shivoo / Has lured them as a crimp.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 70: The Head Crimp of this refined Shake-Down watched her do the Scene in which Ophelia goes Dotty.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 380: He was mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the coffeehouses and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies [...] and other rogues of the game.
1933		H. Asbury Barbary Coast 221: Then Devine rowed Kelly’s boat down the Bay and sold it to another crimp.
1938		J. Digges Bowleg Bill in Botkin (1944) 11–18: The crimp would accost his prey in the pulparee, buy him a few drinks, and then slip him a dose of knockout drops.
1961		‘Go To Sea No More’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 523: The crimps, they all did roar.
1972		B. Wannan Folklore of the Aus. Pub 36: Zealous Customs officials [...] harried the ‘crimps’ until they were driven out of business.

2. (UK Und.) an opium den owner, a supplier of opium.

1912

E. Pugh City Of The World 321: There the Chinese crimp thrives and flourishes [...] he preys not only on his own fellow countrymen, but on whomsoever else he can beguile in his clutches.

3. (US prison) an informer.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL 52/2: Crimp, n. [...] 2. (Western and Central U. S. prisons) A prison guard; an informer.

4. (US) a barely noticeable fold in a card to facilitate cheating.

1963

A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 155: I watched for crimps.