CROOK • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Crook

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/krʊk/ Listen

noun

crook n.

1.

A bend, turn, or curve; curvature; flexure. "Through lanes, and crooks, and darkness."

2.

Any implement having a bent or crooked end. Especially:

(a)

The staff used by a shepherd, the hook of which serves to hold a runaway sheep.

(b)

A bishop's staff of office. Cf. Pastoral staff. "He left his crook, he left his flocks."

3.

A pothook. "As black as the crook."

4.

An artifice; trick; tricky device; subterfuge. "For all yuor brags, hooks, and crooks."

5.

(Mus.) A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.

6.

A person given to fraudulent practices; an accomplice of thieves, forgers, etc. (Cant, U.S.)

By hook or by crook, in some way or other; by fair means or foul.

verb

Crook v. t. (past & past part. crooked; pres. part. crooking)

1.

To turn from a straight line; to bend; to curve. "Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee."

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." "What soever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends."

Crook v. i. To bend; to curve; to wind; to have a curvature. " The port... crooketh like a bow." "Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards."

See images of 'Crook'

Etymology of 'Crook'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Crook" Quotes from Famous Books

... wanted to test the idea of whether a crook like you thought more of what he was doin' than he did of his own life. This gun leather of mine is kind of short at the top—if you'll notice. The stock an' the hammer of the gun are where they can be ...

— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... objects found in France or Spain, with analogous objects of doubtful purpose, found in America or the Antilles. M. Cartailhac writes that, to find anything resembling certain Portuguese "thin plaques of slate in the form of a crook, or crozier," he "sought through all ethnographic material, ancient and modern." He did find the parallels to his Portuguese objects, one from Gaudeloup, the other either French, or ...

— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... itself, was cosy and alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to the candle, reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung associations of enjoyment even over utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook, and along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. ...

— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... objection to his Library being taken at a valuation. Mr. Hanson submits to Mr. Murray whether it would not be best to name one respectable bookseller to set a value on them. In the meantime, Mr. Hanson has written to Messrs. Crook & Armstrong, in whose hands the books now are, not to proceed further ...

— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... the chief. "Haggerty has evidently got us all balled up. I don't believe his fashionable thief has materialized at all; just a common crook. Well, he's got him, at ...

— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

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