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Webster 1913 Edition

Crook

Crook

(kr??k)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Crooked
(kr??kt)
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Crooking
.]
[OE.
croken
; cf. Sw.
kr[GREEK]ka
, Dan.
kr[GREEK]ge
. See Crook,
Noun.
]
1.
To turn from a straight line; to bend; to curve.
Crook
the pregnant hinges of the knee.
Shakespeare
2.
To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist.
[Archaic]
There is no one thing that
crooks
youth more than such unlawfull games.
Ascham.
What soever affairs pass such a man’s hands, he
crooketh
them to his own ends.
Bacon.

Crook

,
Verb.
I.
To bend; to curve; to wind; to have a curvature.
“ The port . . . crooketh like a bow.”
Phaer.
Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long,
crooking
upwards.
Camden.

Webster 1828 Edition

Crook

CROOK

,
Noun.
[G., the back, or ridge of an animal. L., a wrinkle, a circle; rough, hoarse. The radical sense of crook is to strain or draw; hence, to bend.]
1.
Any bend, turn or curve; or a bent or curving instrument. We speak of a crook in a stick of timber, or in a river; and any hook is a crook.
2.
A shepherd staff, curving at the end; a pastoral staff. When used by a bishop or abbot, it is called a crosier.
He left his crook, he left his flocks.
3.
A gibbet.
4.
An artifice; a trick.

CROOK

,
Verb.
T.
1.
To bend; to turn from a straight line; to make a curve or hook.
2.
To turn from rectitude; to pervert.
3.
To thwart. [Little used.]

CROOK

,
Verb.
I.
To bend or be bent; to be turned from a right line; to curve; to wind.

Definition 2024

crook

crook

English

Noun

crook ‎(plural crooks)

  1. A bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure.
    She held the baby in the crook of her arm.‎
    • (Can we date this quote?) Thomas Phaer
      through lanes, and crooks, and darkness
  2. A bending of the knee; a genuflection.
  3. A bent or curved part; a curving piece or portion (of anything).
    the crook of a cane‎
    • 1907, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “chapter I”, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 4241346:
      It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the 'crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side.
  4. (obsolete) A lock or curl of hair.
  5. (obsolete) A gibbet.
  6. (obsolete) A support beam consisting of a post with a cross-beam resting upon it; a bracket or truss consisting of a vertical piece, a horizontal piece, and a strut.
  7. A shepherd's crook; a staff with a semi-circular bend ("hook") at one end used by shepherds.
    • 1970, The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford Study Edition, published 1976, Oxford University Press, Psalms 23-4, p.583:
      Even though I walk through a / valley dark as death / I fear no evil, for thou art with me, / thy staff and thy crook are my / comfort.
  8. A bishop's staff of office.
  9. An artifice; a trick; a contrivance.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Thomas Cranmer
      for all your brags, hooks, and crooks
  10. A person who steals, lies, cheats or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal.
  11. A pothook.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Scott
      as black as the crook
  12. (music) A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.
Synonyms
  • (criminal): See Wikisaurus:criminal
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

crook ‎(third-person singular simple present crooks, present participle crooking, simple past and past participle crooked)

  1. (transitive) To bend.
    He crooked his finger toward me.
    • c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2,
      No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, / And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee / Where thrift may follow fawning.
    • 1784, William Blake, Songs from An Island in the Moon, in Blake: The Complete Poems, edited by W. H. Stevenson, Routledge, 3rd edition, 2007, p. 50,
      For if a damsel's blind or lame, / Or nature's hand has crooked her frame, / Or if she's deaf or is wall-eyed; / Yet if her heart is well inclined, / Some tender lover she shall find / That panteth for a bride.
    • 1917, Leo Tolstoy, Constance Garnett (translator) Anna Karenina, Part 4, Chapter 5,
      “ […] In the following cases: physical defect in the married parties, desertion without communication for five years,” he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair […] .
  2. To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist.
    • 1545, Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, edited by Edward Arber, Westminster: A. Constable & Co., 1895, pp. 57-8,
      For the foundation of youth well sette (as Plato doth saye) the whole bodye of the commune wealth shall floryshe therafter. If the yonge tree growe croked, when it is oulde, a man shal rather breake it than streyght it. And I thinke there is no one thinge yat crokes youth more then suche vnlefull games.
    • 1597, Francis Bacon, "Of Wisdom For a Man's Self," The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral,
      The referring of all to a man's self, is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil, in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master, or state.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

From crooked ‎(“dishonestly come by”). [1]

Adjective

crook ‎(comparative more crook, superlative most crook)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Bad, unsatisfactory, not up to standard.
    That work you did on my car is crook, mate
    Not turning up for training was pretty crook.
    Things are crook at Tallarook.
    • 2004, Robert Barnard, A Cry from the Dark, page 21,
      “Things are crook at home at the moment.”
      “They′re always crook at my home.”
  2. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Ill, sick.
    I′m feeling a bit crook.
  3. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Annoyed, angry; upset.
    be crook at/about; go crook at
    • 2006, Jimmy Butt, Felicity Dargan, I've Been Bloody Lucky: The Story of an Orphan Named Jimmy Butt, page 17,
      Ann explained to the teacher what had happened and the nuns went crook at me too.
    • 2007, Jo Wainer, Bess, Lost: Illegal Abortion Stories, page 159,
      I went home on the tram, then Mum went crook at me because I was late getting home—I had tickets for Mum and her friend to go to the Regent that night and she was annoyed because I was late.
    • 2007, Ruby Langford Ginibi, Don′t Take Your Love to Town, page 100,
      I went crook at them for not telling me and as soon as she was well enough I took her home to the camping area and she soon picked up.
    • 2009, Carolyn Landon, Cups With No Handles: Memoir of a Grassroots Activist, page 234,
      Mum went crook at me for wasting money, but when Don got a job and spent all his money on a racing bike, she didn′t say a thing to him.

Usage notes

Synthetic comparative and superlative forms (crooker, crookest) also find frequent use.

Derived terms
  • crook as Rookwood

References

  1. ↑ Australian National Dictionary Centre Home » Australian words » Meanings and origins of Australian words and idioms » C

Etymology

From Middle English croke, crok, from Old English *crōc ‎(“hook, bend, crook”), from Proto-Germanic *krōkaz ‎(“bend, hook”), from Proto-Indo-European *greg- ‎(“tracery, basket, bend”). Cognate with Dutch kreuk ‎(“a bend, fold, wrinkle”), Middle Low German kroke, krake ‎(“fold, wrinkle”), Danish krog ‎(“crook, hook”), Swedish krok ‎(“crook, hook”), Icelandic krókur ‎(“hook”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /kɹʊk/
  • Rhymes: -ʊk

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