crock
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɹɒk/
ipa: /kɹɑk/
ipa: /kɹɔk/
rhymes: -ɒk
homophone: croc
Forms: form: crocks
Etymology: From Middle English crok, crokke (“earthenware jar, pot, or other container; cauldron; belly, stomach”) [and other forms], from Old English crocc, crocca (“crock, pot, vessel”) [and other forms], from Proto-Germanic *krukkō, *krukkô (“vessel”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *grewg- (“vessel”).
The English word is cognate with Danish and Norwegian krukke (“jar”), Dutch kruik (“jar, jug”), regional German Kruke (“crock”), Icelandic krukka (“pot, jar”), Old English crōg, crōh (“crock, pitcher, vessel”). See also cruse.
Senses: examples: 1590-96, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 1750, The Works of Spenser, Volume 3, page 181,
Therefore the Vulgar did about him flock / And cluster thick unto his leaſings vain; / Like fooliſh Flies about an Honey-Crock; / In hope by him great Benefit to gain, / And uncontrolled Freedom to obtain.
glosses: A stoneware or earthenware jar or storage container.
glosses: A piece of broken pottery, a shard.
examples: text: old crocks’ home
translation: home for the aged
english: home for the aged
text: He was getting very proud of the way he had learned to manage his game leg, and it occurred to him that here was a chance of testing his balance. […] “Not so bad that, for a crock,” he told himself, as he lay full length in the sun watching the faint line of the Haripol hills overtopping the ridge of Crask.
ref: 1925, John Buchan, John Macnab, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0300621:
text: He was in love with a girl, whose full name he did not tell me, and whom he had not seen for two years. She was a Lady Diana Someone, so much I knew, very lovely, a sort of relation, and he believed he had a chance if only the doctors could do something to help his asthma. “Can′t ask a girl to marry a crock.”
ref: 1932, Helen Simpson, Boomerang, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0800611:
text: Girl: "Will you always be a bit of a crock?"
Man: "According to my doctor, no."
Girl: "I was afraid you looked bad-tempered because you were crocked up for life."
ref: 2006, The Moving Finger, part one (Miss Marple, 15 min, 20 year old bicycling tomboy to injured walker)
glosses: A person who is physically limited by age, illness or injury.
examples: text: old crocks race
translation: veteran car rally
english: veteran car rally
synonyms: word: banger
word: banger
word: beater
word: bucket of bolts
word: bucket of rust
word: clunker
word: crate
word: crock
word: flivver
word: hooptie
word: jalopy
word: junker
word: lemon
word: old banger
word: rattletrap
word: rustbucket
word: shed
word: shitbox
word: shitpot
word: shitcan
word: shitbucket
word: tin Lizzie
word: wreck
glosses: An old or broken-down vehicle (and formerly a horse or ewe).
examples: text: That's a bunch of crock.
text: The story is a crock.
glosses: Silly talk, a foolish belief, a poor excuse, nonsense.
examples: 1709, Isaac Bickerstaff (Richard Steele), The Tatler, 1822, Alexander Chalmers (editor), The Tatler, 2007 Facsimile Edition, page 12,
I then inquired for the person that belonged to the petticoat; and, to my great surprise, was directed to a very beautiful young damsel, with so pretty a face and shape, that I bid her come out of the crowd, and seated her upon a little crock at my left hand.
glosses: A low stool.
examples: ref: 1959, Kenneth Hammond, Fred Kern, Teaching Comprehensive Medical Care^([470]), →OCLC, pages A: Well, yes. Nobody likes crocks. Q: Why not? A: They're a nuisance. There is nothing ever wrong with them and they are even so peculiar they never have diseases other people do.:
text: Mumford (1970) noted that the terms ‘crock’, ‘gomer’, and ‘turkey’, were sometimes utilized by interns to designate different types of undesirable patients, and sometimes used synonymously.
ref: 1976, Stephen Charles Frankel, Emergency Medical Care in an Urban Area, page 118:
qualifier: medical slang
glosses: A patient who is difficult to treat, especially one who complains of a minor or imagined illness.
Derived terms: crockware
crocky