# crotchet
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English crochet, from Old French crochet (“small hook”), from croc + -et (diminutive suffix), from Old Norse krókr (“hook”). The musical note was named so because of a small hook on its stem in black notation (in modern notation this hook is on the quaver/eighth note). Doublet of crochet, crocket, and croquet.

### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /ˈkɹɑt͡ʃ.ɪt/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈkɹɒtʃ.ɪt/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɒtʃɪt

### Noun

crotchet (plural crotchets)
* (music) A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.
    Synonym: (US) quarter note
** 1920 August 27, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Wind Blows”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, pages 140–141:The crotchets and quavers are dancing up and down the stave like little black boys on a fence.
* (obsolete) A sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook
* (surgery, now chiefly historical) A hook-shaped instrument, especially as used in obstetric surgery.
** 1797 September 1, Hester Lynch Piozzi, Thraliana:Either Doctor Denman or an old Woman would have waited—but since the horrid death-doing Crotchet has been found out, & its use permitted—Oh! many & many a Life has been flung away.
* (archaic) A whim or a fancy.
** 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Democracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page 124:Thou who walkest in a vain shew, looking out with ornamental dilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life and all Death; and amblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk into crotchets, thy poor conduct into fatuous somnambulisms; [...] dost thou call that "liberty!"
** 1847, Thomas De Quincey, “Secret Societies”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine:He ruined himself and all that trusted in him by crotchets that he could never explain to any rational man.
* A forked support; a crotch.
** 1717, John Dryden, “Book VIII. [The Story of Baucis and Philemon.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 287:Their little Shed, ſcarce large enough for Two, / Seems, from the Ground increas'd, in Height and Bulk to grow. / A ſtately Temple ſhoots within the Skies, / The Crotchets of their Cot in Columns riſe: [...]
* (military, historical) An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.
* (military) The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.
* (printing) A square bracket.

#### Derived terms

* crotcheteer
* crotchet rest
* crotchety

#### Translations
### Verb

crotchet (third-person singular simple present crotchets, present participle crotcheting, simple past and past participle crotcheted)
* (obsolete) to play music in measured time
** a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “(please specify the title)”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, →OCLC:The nimblest crotcheting musician
* Archaic form of crochet (knit by looping)

## Norman
### Etymology

From Old French crochet (“small hook”), from croc (with diminutive suffix -et), from Old Norse krókr (“hook”).

### Noun

crotchet m (plural crotchets)
* (Jersey, punctuation) bracket

#### Derived terms

* crotchet cârré (“square bracket”)