Other forms: creases, creased, creasing
A crease is a line pressed into cloth or paper where it has been folded or crushed. The ones that appear across a shirt packed at the bottom of a suitcase, or the white line through a photograph that has lived in a wallet too long.
Some creases are wanted. The sharp crease down the front of a pair of trousers is the entire point of pressing them. The verb works both ways: you crease a page by folding it, and cloth creases by itself — 'linen creases terribly'. Creased describes the result, and crease-resistant is the promise on a shirt label. Faces get them too, a crease at the corner of the eye when someone smiles. And in cricket the crease is the white line the batsman stands behind, which is a different thing altogether.
1nounwrinkleA line made in cloth or paper by folding or crushing it.
“There was a deep crease across the middle of the letter.”
2nouncreaseA sharp line pressed deliberately into clothing.
“He ironed a crease into each trouser leg.”
3verbpaperTo make lines in cloth or paper by folding or crushing it, or to get such lines.
“Don't sit on my jacket — you'll crease it.”
4nounskinA line in the skin, especially on the face.
“A crease appeared between her eyebrows.”
5nouncricketIn cricket, a white line marking where the batsman stands.
“The batsman stepped out of his crease and was stumped.”
Crease is a worn-down form of an earlier English creast, which came from Middle English crest — the same crest as a ridge on a hill or the top of a wave. A fold in cloth stands up in a small ridge, and the word simply followed the shape.
Middle English
crest — ridge, crest
English, today
crease
From earlier English creast, from Middle English crest (“ridge, crest”). More at crest.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA