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Word Smith: Crease

One word with several interesting meanings is CREASE. It is a verb and a noun with a strong sports affiliation. There are creases in field games like lacrosse and cricket and indoor sports like box lacrosse and ice hockey. The crease is often a spaces that protects the “goalie” from getting hammered by the players as they try to jam in a score. The crease can only be entered by players at certain times and situations. There are rules in sport, after all.

There are also creases in society, clothing, curtains, fashion, cultures, politics, and the like. This post will not delve beyond sports and clothing, so there is lots of room for others to discuss where the real creases in society lie.

See the definitions of crease below:

NOUN
“khaki trousers with knife-edge creases”
synonyms: fold, groove, ridge, furrow, line, ruck, pleat, tuck, corrugation;

rare: ruckle
“he always has trousers with creases”
2. the flap of skin, usually below the eye brow, where color, mascara, or sparkles are put to highlight eyes.
3. any of a number of lines in cricket marked on the pitch at specified places, with creases for popping, return and bowling, the crease especially effect the position of a batsman
VERB
1. make a crease in (cloth or paper).
“the paper airplane and paper arrow were full of creases” and “he sank into the chair, careful not to crease his dinner jacket”
synonyms: crumple, wrinkle, crinkle, scrunch up, rumple, line, pucker, crimp, ruck up, gather, furrow;
2. crease (of a bullet) graze (someone or something), causing little damage.
“a bullet creased his head with a bloody line”

Once a classic private school lacrosse watering hole, The Crease, was a classic bar and restaurant in Towson, Maryland, founded by Richie Evans, a Maryland lacrosse entrepreneur. It has now closed. The end of a happy and lucrative preppy lax era.