cramp

A momentary mental lapse in attention, memory, understanding, care, or competence. Sorry boss, I just had a little brain cramp there. What were you saying again? Jack, having a bit of a brain cramp, accidentally sawed the beam completely in two.

To inhibit or interfere with what one wants to do. Ugh, having a test on Monday is really cramping my style. I just want to party all weekend! My parents coming to stay with me this weekend is totally going to cramp my style. When am I supposed to get anything done?

Fig. to limit someone in some way. I hope this doesn't cramp your style, but could you please not hum while you work? To ask Bob to keep regular hours would really be cramping his style.

to prevent someone from doing something freely, esp. something they enjoy Bringing her mother along on the trip would definitely cramp her style.

to prevent someone from enjoying themselves as much as they would like, especially by going somewhere with them Are you sure you don't mind your old mother coming along with you? I'd hate to cramp your style.

Restrict or prevent someone from free action or expression, as in It really cramps my style when Mom hovers around me while I'm making dinner. Although in 1819 Charles Lamb complained that using different inks cramped his style of writing, the present sense of this colloquial term dates only from the early 1900s.

To restrict or prevent from free action or expression.

A painful spasm in the hand that restricts the ability to use a pen or pencil. Back in the Paleozoic Era when people wrote by hand instead of typewriters and then computers (you youngsters can ask your parents or grandparents if you don't believe me), excessive use of a pen or pencil would cause a person's hand to tense up or go into a spasm that made further writing painful or impossible or both. The condition wasn't called “repetitive stress syndrome” back then. It was “writer's cramp,” and that was no excuse for the schoolroom punishment of being made to write “I will not talk in class” one hundred times on the blackboard.