crook

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English crok, also crouk and northern cruk,^[2] apparently borrowed from Old Norse krókr (“hook, barb, bend, corner”),^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} whose descendants include krok and krog.^[3][5][9] The OED notes that the word is unknown elsewhere in Germanic but seems to belong to the same ablaut series as Old High German chracho (“hook”); it compares kraki (“boat-hook”).^[3][4][10] The MED also allows an unrecorded Old English *crōc,^[2] a form Etymonline notes has not been found.^[4] Wiktionary takes it back to Proto-Germanic *krōkaz (“bend, hook”),^[11][12] and Barnhart to Proto-Indo-European *grēg-,^[10] while Etymonline calls its further origin obscure.^[4] Merriam-Webster also relates it to cradle.^[13] Old French borrowed the Norse word as Old French croc, the source of crochet, croquet, crotchet and encroach, and through its verbs of crotch and crouch.^[8] The verb is croken, formed from the noun,^{[13][3][5][10]} though Etymonline allows an unrecorded Old English *crōcian.^[4] The sense "criminal" comes from crooked in the sense "dishonest",^[4][10][8] and Weekley thought it was partly suggested by French escroc (“swindler”).^[14] The Australian adjective is taken as a shortening of crooked,^[15][16][17] while Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com suggest an alteration of cronk.^[13][18]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb, to bend into a curved or angular shape, is recorded first, about 1175 in the Lambeth Homilies.^[3][4] The noun, a hooked tool such as a pothook or a sickle, appears before 1200 in a gloss on Sidonius in the MED,^[2] probably before 1200 in Barnhart,^[10] and about 1290 in the OED.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English a crook was also a trick or wile, especially of the Devil,^[4][6][5] a sense Gower used^[19] and which died out by the 17th century.^[16][20] The Ancrene Riwle (about 1225) uses it for the crooked claw of a demon or animal.^[3] The shepherd's staff with a hooked end is recorded from about 1430, in Lydgate,^[3] and the bishop's crosier from about 1386, in Chaucer.^[3] From the late 14th century it meant a curved part of anything; any bend or curve followed in the late 15th century,^[4] as in the crook of the arm.^[5] Printers called brackets crooks from 1642, in Milton, to 1762.^[3] The verb to crook one's elbow or little finger, to drink, is slang from 1825.^[3][5] In music a crook is a curved piece of tubing added to a horn to lower its pitch (1842).^[3][9] The modern sense, a dishonest person or criminal, is American English, first recorded in 1879;^[4][10] Ayto describes such a person as almost literally "bent",^[8] and in British criminal slang the crook was professional crime, so that on the crook meant dishonestly, from 1865.^[21][5] In Australia and New Zealand the adjective crook has meant bad or unpleasant, dishonest, and ill or unwell since the late 1890s,^[20][21][13] and to go crook is to get angry.^[9][5] In Somerset dialect the Devil was old Crook, from his crooked claw.^[22]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – verb, to bend into a curved shape.^[3]
• before 1200 – noun, a hooked tool or implement.^[2][10]
• c. 1225 – a crooked claw.^[3]
• before 1300 – intransitive verb, to bend or be bent.^[3]
• c. 1386 – a bishop's crosier.^[3]
• 1417 – a small odd-shaped piece of ground, a nook.^[3]
• c. 1430 – a shepherd's hooked staff.^[3]
• 1642 – brackets in printing (until 1762).^[3]
• 1825 – crook one's elbow, to drink.^[3]
• 1842 – a curved tube added to a wind instrument.^[3]
• 1879 – US, a swindler or criminal.^[4][10]
• 1890 – polo, to hook an opponent's stick.^[3]
• 1898 – Australian, dishonest; bad.^[21][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shepherd's staff with a hooked end; also a bishop's crosier.^[9][13][3]
2. A bend or curve, or the curved part of something: She carried the puppy in the crook of her elbow.^[9][5][3]
3. Any tool or object with a bent or hooked form.^[9][13][3]
4. (informal) A dishonest person, such as a swindler or thief; a criminal.^[9][13][5]
5. A piece of curved tubing fitted to a brass instrument to change its pitch.^[9][3][5]
6. (obsolete) A trick or artifice.^[13][5]

Verb

1. To bend or curve something: He crooked a finger to call the waiter over.^[9][13][3]
2. To bend or be bent; to curve.^[9][3][5]
3. In polo, to hook an opponent's stick with one's own.^[3][5]

Adjective

1. (Australia and New Zealand, informal) Ill or unwell: He stayed home all week feeling crook.^[9][13][23]
2. (Australia and New Zealand, informal) Bad, unpleasant or of poor quality; also out of order.^{[9][13][5][23]}
3. (Australia and New Zealand, informal) Dishonest or illegal.^[23][21][17]
4. (Australia and New Zealand, informal) go crook: to become angry; to scold.^[9][13][5]

Word family

• crookback
• crookery
• crookneck
• crooked

Related words

• crochet
• croquet
• crotchet
• encroach
• crouch
• crotch
• crosier
• cronk

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
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 z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d 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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
16. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Australian National Dictionary Centre, Meanings and Origins of Australian Words and Idioms, https://andc.anu.edu.au
18. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
19. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
20. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
21. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
22. ^ 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)
23. ^ a b c Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press