Category:Crook

Crook (krk), n. Etym: [OE. crok; akin to Icel. kr hook,bend, SW. krok, Dan. krog, OD. krooke; or cf. Gael. crecan crook, hook, W. crwca crooked. Cf. Crosier, Crotchet, Crutch, Encroach.]

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

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 stafu. He left his crook, he left his flocks. Prior.

3. A pothook. "As black as the crook." Sir W. Scott.

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

5. (Mus.)

Defn: 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.

crook Crook (krk), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Crooked (krkt); p. pr. & vb. n. Crooking.] Etym: [OE. croken; cf. Sw. kr, Dan. kr. See Crook, n.]

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

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 Crook, v. i.

Defn: 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.