crock

crock¹ earthenware pot

Etymology

The word for the earthenware pot is inherited from Middle English crokke, also crok,^[5][6][4] inherited from Old English crocc, also crocca, a pot or pitcher.^[2][6][7][8] Wiktionary takes it from Proto-Germanic *krukkō (“vessel”),^[4] while Barnhart reconstructs *krōgu- and Etymonline *krogu (“pitcher, pot”).^[7][6] It is related to crūce (“pitcher”) and to crōg,^[7][9][10] and cognate with Old Frisian krocha (“pot”), Old Saxon krūka, Middle Dutch crūke (Dutch kruik), Middle High German krūche, Old High German kruog (“pitcher”) (German Krug) and Old Norse krukka (Danish krukke, Swedish kruka).^[7][6][11] Barnhart traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *greu-g-;^[7] Etymonline and Hoad compare Middle Irish crocan (“pot”) and Ancient Greek κρωσσός (krōssós, “pitcher”),^[6][10] Hoad and Ayto also Welsh crochan,^[10][1] and the OED leaves open whether the Celtic words are related.^[2] Klein thinks all these words were probably borrowed from the same unknown language.^[11] cruet comes, through Anglo-Norman and Old French, from the Old Saxon word.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

An earthen pot, jar or other vessel, in Old English medical texts (the Leechdoms);^[2][8] the Old English word also glossed Latin olla and testa and was used for boiling water.^[8] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotation is from about 1120.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English crokke was an earthen pot, jar or pitcher, used figuratively in the Ancrene Riwle, and could also mean the stomach or belly;^[5] Chaucer used the word twice.^[12] Etymonline notes that it was a vessel for meal, butter, milk and the like or for cooking, usually earthen but sometimes of brass or iron;^[6] from about 1475 it was also a metal pot in south-western English.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as a cup or any earthen vessel.^[13] From 1850 a crock was also a broken piece of earthenware used to cover the hole in a flowerpot.^[2][3] The derivative crockery is recorded from 1719.^[7][1] Etymonline says the word has served as an image of worthless rubbish since the 19th century, perhaps because crockery was used for chamber pots.^[6] In American slang crock meant the head, as in off one's crock, crazy (1929),^[14] and since the 1940s it has been short for crock of shit, a lot of nonsense or lies.^[2][15][14] Ayto notes that the noun is now seldom heard on its own except in crock of gold.^[1]

Timeline

• Old English – an earthen pot, jar or other vessel.^[2][8]
• c. 1475 – a pot of iron or other metal, in south-western English.^[2]
• 1594 – verb, to put up in a crock or pot, in John Lyly.^[2][3]
• 1850 – a potsherd used to cover the hole in a flowerpot.^[2]
• 1929 – American slang, the head, in off one's crock.^[14]
• 1945 – slang, short for crock of shit, nonsense.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thick earthenware pot or jar: a crock of pickled cabbage.^{[16][3][15][2]}
2. A broken piece of earthenware; a potsherd, especially one used to cover the hole in a flowerpot.^[16][3][2]
3. (slang) nonsense or lies, short for crock of shit: That excuse is a crock.^{[16][3][15][2]}
4. (dialect) A cooking pot, usually of iron.^[3][2]

Verb

1. To put or store in a crock.^[3][2][9]

Word family

• crockery
• crockpot
• crocker

crock² broken-down animal or person

Etymology

The word for the broken-down animal or person is inherited from Middle English crok,^[3][17] of uncertain origin.^[2] The OED compares Norwegian krake and krakje, a sickly or emaciated beast, Swedish krake, Danish krak, Low German krakke, North Frisian krack, a sorry broken-down horse, Middle Dutch kraecke, a broken-down horse or house, and East Frisian krakke, a broken-down horse, house or old man, all apparently related to crack.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged thinks the word probably Scandinavian, and adds Icelandic kraki (“delicate boy”), Dutch kraak (“broken-down cow or person”) and perhaps Old Norse krókr (“hook, corner”), the source of crook.^[3] The Shorter Oxford and Hoad suggest a Flemish origin, though the likely words, such as Flemish krake, have a different vowel.^[9][10] Ayto, Partridge and Klein also connect it with crack,^[1][18][11] and Weekley suggests that a “crack” and a “crock” may be etymologically identical.^[19] Partridge thinks it was probably influenced by the potsherd sense of the pot word crock¹.^[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

An old ewe, or one that has stopped bearing: 1528, in David Lindsay's Dreme, in Scots.^[2][3] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford place it in the 15th century,^[10][9] and Dictionary.com dates the Middle English crok, old ewe, to 1300–50.^[17]

Semantic evolution

The word began in Scotland as a term for an old ewe,^[20][1][10] and in the late 19th century came to mean an old broken-down horse.^[20][2] Green's Dictionary of Slang finds crock for a broken-down horse in 1863 and crockies for unfit persons in 1841;^[14] the OED dates the horse to 1879 and the contemptuous use of persons to 1876.^[2] The personal sense now usually means a broken-down or sickly person, or a hypochondriac,^[2][9] and since 1903, in Kipling, it has also meant an old worn-out vehicle, ship or bicycle, especially an old crock.^[2] The verb, to break down or collapse, and transitively to injure or disable, often with up, is recorded from 1846 in a glossary of North Country words;^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the transitive verb to 1839.^[3] In the English Dialect Dictionary the old ewe is recorded in Scotland, Ireland and the north and Midlands of England, also as crock-yow.^[21]

Timeline

• 1528 – an old ewe, or one that has stopped bearing, in Scots.^[2][3]
• 1846 – verb, to break down, collapse; to injure or disable.^[2]
• 1863 – an old broken-down horse.^[14][2]
• 1876 – contemptuously of people; later, a sickly person or hypochondriac.^[2]
• 1903 – an old worn-out vehicle, ship or bicycle, especially old crock.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (informal) An old or decrepit person or thing, especially a car; usually old crock: He drove the old crock to the scrapyard himself.^[16][2][3]
2. An old broken-down horse.^[16][3][2]
3. A sickly person, or a hypochondriac.^[2][9]
4. (dialect) An old or barren ewe.^[16][3][2]

Verb

1. To break down or become disabled; to injure or disable, often with up: She crocked her knee in the first match.^{[16][3][2][9]}