crouch

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English crouchen, also cruchen and croushen,^[2][3] of uncertain origin.^[4][5][6] Many dictionaries take it as probably or perhaps borrowed from Old French crochir (“to become bent, crooked”),^{[7][8][3][9][10][11]} from croche (“hook”), the source of crochet;^{[7][8][12][3]} the American Heritage Dictionary posits an Old North French variant Old Northern French *crouchir,^[12] and Skeat traces croche to Late Latin croccus (“hook”).^[11] The OED points out that Godefroy has only one example of crochir, said of the shoulders, and that although it could give English crouch on the pattern of pouch and avouch, the late appearance of the English word is still surprising;^[4] Weekley likewise thought the French verb too rare to be the source.^[13] The OED also rejects the usual identification with crouk, since the two appear side by side as distinct words in the first quotation, nothing explains the palatalized consonant, and the dialect forms (Scots /krutʃ/, West Yorkshire /kraːtʃ/) point to a Middle English long u that a native word could not have had.^[4] The Middle English Dictionary, Dictionary.com and Barnhart instead consider it a blend of couchen (“to lie down”) (modern couch) and croken (“to bend, bow”) (modern crook);^[2][14][7] Klein proposed a blend of cringe and couch,^[15] and Weekley a combination of crook, cringe and couch.^[13] Johnson had derived it from French crochu (“crooked”).^[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

To stoop or bend low, as for shelter, in fear or in submission: about 1394, in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, where lords are said to love them because they crouch so low.^[4][2] Barnhart dates it to about 1395, Etymonline to the late 14th century.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb carried both the physical sense, bending low with the limbs drawn in, and the social one, bowing or cringing before a superior; the Middle English Dictionary glosses its first quotations "to stoop, cringe, fawn", and uses it too of an animal lying down.^[2][4] The figurative sense, to bow servilely or fawn, has its own OED record from 1528,^[4] and Johnson (1755) gave both "to stoop low; to lye close to the ground; as the lion crouches to his master" and "to fawn; to bend servilely", quoting 1 Samuel: "shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver".^[16] A transitive use, to bend the knee or the like low, follows from before 1644.^[4] The noun, an act of crouching, appears in 1597, in Lyly's The Woman in the Moon,^[4][7][8] and in athletics from 1913 the crouch or crouch start is a sprint start on all fours.^[4] Merriam-Webster marks the old sense "to bow low in reverence" as obsolete, and its modern senses include the stance of a player or sprinter lowering the body.^[3] In Scots and Cheshire dialect the verb (also crooch) meant to stoop down and figuratively to cringe, with crouchie for a humpback.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1394 – to stoop or bend low, as in fear or submission.^[4][2]
• 1528 – to bow humbly or servilely; to cringe or fawn.^[4]
• 1597 – noun, an act of crouching.^[4][7]
• before 1644 – transitive, to bend the knee or the like low.^[4]
• 1913 – noun, in athletics, the crouch start.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bend low with the legs bent and the limbs drawn close to the body, as an animal ready to pounce or a person hiding: The cat crouched in the grass, watching the sparrows.^{[6][18][3][4]}
2. To cringe or bow servilely, as in fear or humility.^[6][18][4]
3. To bend (the head, knee or body) low, as in fear or humility.^[6][18][4]
4. (obsolete) To bow low as a sign of reverence.^[3][5]

Noun

1. The act of crouching, or a crouching position: The goalkeeper waited in a low crouch.^{[6][18][3][4]}

Word family

• croucher
• crouchingly

Related words

• crochet
• crook
• crotch
• couch
• cringe

Usage notes

An unrelated obsolete noun crouch, a cross, came from Old English, from Latin crux;^[5][4] it survived latterly only in Crouchmas, the feast of the Invention of the Cross on 3 May,^[5] and the matching Middle English verb meant to sign with the cross, as in Crouched Freres, the Crutched Friars.^[2][4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
16. ^ 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.
17. ^ 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 c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin