crook
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɹʊk/
ipa: [kɹ̠̊˔ʷʊk]
ipa: /kɹʉk/
ipa: /kɹuːk/
rhymes: -ʊk
Forms: form: crooks
Etymology: From Middle English croke, crok, from Old English *crōc (“hook, bend, crook”), from Proto-West Germanic *krōk, 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”).
Compare typologically Czech křivák (< křivý < Proto-Slavic *krivъ, whence also *krivьda).
Senses: examples: text: She held the baby in the crook of her arm.
text: he walks bye lanes, and crooks
ref: 1842, William Edward Hoskins, De Valencourt:
glosses: A bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure.
glosses: A bending of the knee; a genuflection.
examples: text: the crook of a cane
text: 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.
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “His Own People”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 6:
glosses: A bent or curved part; a curving piece or portion (of anything).
glosses: A lock or curl of hair.
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1970, The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford Study Edition, published 1976, Oxford University Press, Psalms 23-4, p.583
glosses: A specialized staff with a semi-circular bend (a "hook") at one end used by shepherds to control their herds.
glosses: A bishop's standard staff of office.
examples: text: for all your brags, hooks, and crooks
ref: c. 1547, Thomas Cranmer, Against Transubstantiation:
glosses: An artifice; a trick; a contrivance.
examples: text: In these early days of silent pictures, the accent was chiefly on thrills and danger as provided by supposedly unstoppable locomotives with crooks or maniacs on the footplate.
ref: 1958 February 23, David Gunston, “Railways on the Screen”, in Railway Magazine, page 88:
text: 1973 November 17, Richard Nixon, reported 1973 November 18, The Washington Post, Nixon Tells Editors, ‘I'm Not a Crook’,
"People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I′m not a crook. I′ve earned everything I′ve got."
glosses: A person who steals, lies, cheats or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal.
glosses: A pothook.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.
Synonyms: sense: criminal
word: criminal
Derived terms: word: acrook
word: apple crook
word: arm in crook
word: by hook or by crook
word: by hook or crook
word: crookback
word: crookbacked
word: crookbill
word: crookery
word: crook in the lot
word: crookle
word: crookneck
word: crook of the arm
word: cruckle
word: cybercrook
word: on the crook
word: pool at the crook
word: throw-crook