Etymologically
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crank

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /kɹænk/[1]
  • US: /kɹæŋk/, /kɹeɪŋk/[1]

crank1 bent handle; eccentric person

Etymology

The bent handle is inherited from Middle English cranke,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English cranc-, recorded only in crancstæf, the name of a weaver's implement,[5][6][3][7][8] beside crencestre (“female weaver”).[9][10] The OED takes it as an ablaut derivative of the rare Old English verb crincan, a by-form of cringan (“to fall in battle”), whose first meaning seems to have been to draw oneself together in a bent shape, to curl up;[5][11] the same group gave cringe and crinkle.[8][2][12] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Germanic *krank- (“to bend, curl up”),[9] and the relatives elsewhere in Germanic took the figurative path, "to give way, become weak": Middle High German kranc (“weak”), German krank and Dutch krank (“sick”).[5][9][3][13] Klein compares Lithuanian gręžti (“to turn, twist”).[13] The noun crank meaning a crook or bend, and later a fanciful turn and an eccentric person, is of the same origin and possibly the same word,[5][10] but Barnhart, Etymonline and Ayto take the eccentric person as a back-formation from cranky.[2][9][8] The verb is formed from the noun.[5][2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English crancstæf named an implement used in weaving, in a list of such tools.[6][5] As a separate word crank is first recorded about 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum,[2] glossing Latin haustrum, a winch,[8][4] and Barnhart cites an earlier cronk from 1295.[2] In early times a crank was chiefly a handle or treadle for turning an axle by hand or foot.[5]

Semantic evolution

English kept the literal sense of something bent or crooked, while German and Dutch krank developed the sense "sick".[9][5] From the 1570s crank also meant a bend or winding, as of a path or river,[5][10] and the verb, first in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, meant to zigzag;[2][5][9] Hotspur's river "comes me cranking in" in 1 Henry IV.[10] A twisted turn of speech was a crank from 1594, usually in Milton's phrase quips and cranks;[5][14] from 1848 the word meant a whim or eccentric notion.[5][9] An eccentric person, especially one obsessed with one idea, was called a crank from 1833, first in American English;[5][2][9][14] Etymonline rejects the story that this came from the crank of a barrel organ playing the same tune over and over.[9] In machinery the crank came to be used, from 1728, for converting reciprocating into rotary motion, as in the steam engine;[5] from 1847 the prison crank was a disc turned by convicts as punishment.[5][3] With the motor car, to crank an engine is recorded from 1908,[5][9][2] and the slang crank up, to start or to increase, followed.[3][15] In 20th-century American slang crank is also methamphetamine.[5][16] In northern English dialect the crank was the bent iron axle used to turn a grindstone.[17]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – crancstæf, a weaving implement.[2][6]
  • 1295 – cronk.[2]
  • c. 1440 – cranke, a winch handle.[2][8]
  • 1572 – a bend or winding.[5]
  • 1592 – verb, to zigzag, in Shakespeare.[3][2]
  • 1594 – a fanciful turn of speech.[5]
  • 1728 – a device converting circular into reciprocating motion, or the reverse.[5]
  • 1791 – verb, to bend into the shape of a crank.[5]
  • 1833 – an eccentric person.[5][2][9]
  • 1847 – the prison crank.[5]
  • 1848 – a whim, eccentric notion.[5][9]
  • 1908 – verb, to start a motor engine with a crank.[5][9][2]
  • 1969 – slang, methamphetamine.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An arm set at right angles to a shaft, used to turn it or to convert reciprocating motion into rotary motion, or the reverse.[16][3][5]
  2. A handle with such an arm, used to start an engine.[16]
  3. (informal) An eccentric person, especially one who holds stubbornly to odd ideas or is obsessed with one subject: a health-food crank.[16][3][5]
  4. (US and Canada) A bad-tempered person; a grouch.[16]
  5. (slang) Methamphetamine, especially crystal meth.[16][5]
  6. A whim or fanciful turn of mind or action.[3][5]
  7. A twist of speech, chiefly in the phrase quips and cranks.[3][5]
  8. A machine with a disc that convicts had to turn by hand as a punishment.[3][5]
  9. (archaic) A bend or winding, as in a path or channel.[3][10]

Verb

  1. To turn a crank, or to start an engine by turning one: She cranked the old tractor until it coughed into life.[3][16][5]
  2. crank up: to start or increase something, such as the volume of music.[3][15]
  3. To bend into the shape of a crank.[3][16][5]
  4. To furnish or fasten with a crank.[3][5]
  5. (obsolete) To zigzag; to twist and wind.[16][5]

Word family

  • crankcase
  • crankpin
  • crankshaft
  • cranky
  • crankish
  • crankle
  • crankless
  • noncranking
  • bellcrank

crank2 unstable (of a ship)

Etymology

The nautical adjective is from English short for crank-sided,[3][10][14] which appears first,[5] but its first element is of obscure origin.[5][10] Early explanations link it with Dutch krengd (“lying over on its side”), used of a ship, the past participle of krengen (“to push over; to careen”);[5][14][3] the OED thinks this foreign word was possibly caught up and confused with the native crank,[5] and Merriam-Webster derives the verb from Middle Dutch crenghen (“to cause to turn”).[3] Weekley took the Dutch verb as ultimately related to the handle crank, in the sense of turning,[14] and the Shorter Oxford suggests a link either with the handle or with the Scots adjective crank, crooked.[10] Johnson had derived it from Dutch “kranck”, sick.[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

Liable to heel over: first in the compound crank-sided, in Captain John Smith's Accidence (1626).[5][14] Merriam-Webster dates crank alone to about 1649,[3] the OED to 1696, in Phillips's dictionary.[5]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed a sailors' term for a ship built too deep or too narrow, or without enough ballast to carry full sail.[5][10][18] Coles's dictionary (1677) explains crank-sided as a ship that will bear only a small sail,[17] and in Kent in 1736 sailors called a boat that was apt to overturn "a crank boat".[17] It was used figuratively of unsteady things and people:[10][17] in Smollett's Peregrine Pickle (1751) a sailor whose "upper decks" are overloaded with drink becomes "crank" and rolls.[17]

Timeline

  • 1626 – crank-sided, of a ship.[5]
  • c. 1649 – crank, easily tipped.[3]
  • 1696 – crank in Phillips's New World of Words.[5]
  • 1736 – a crank boat, in Kent.[17]
  • 1751 – figurative, unsteady from drink.[17]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (nautical) Of a boat or ship: easily heeled over or liable to capsize, because it is built too deep or narrow or carries too little ballast.[3][5][10]
  2. Unsteady, shaky.[10][17]

Word family

  • crank-sided
  • cringe
  • crinkle
  • cringle

Usage notes

Other words spelled crank have separate sources.[5][10] An adjective meaning lusty or vigorous, later lively, merry or cocky (now dialect and American), is recorded from 1398 and is of unknown origin;[5][10][3] it survived in many English dialects, of a sick person who is better or of a frolicsome horse.[17] The 16th-century cant crank, in full counterfeit crank, a beggar who pretended to have epilepsy, was apparently taken from Dutch or German krank, sick.[5][3][10][15] A crank or to crank, a harsh creaking sound or to make one, recorded from Burns (1786) and Clare (1827), is apparently imitative.[5][3][10]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  18. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.