crook
pronunciation
How to pronounce crook in British English:
UK [krʊk]
How to pronounce crook in American English:
US [krʊk]
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- Noun:
- someone who has committed (or been legally convicted of) a crime
- a circular segment of a curve
- a long staff with one end being hook shaped
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- Verb:
- bend or cause to bend
Word Origin
- crook
- crook: [12] A crook ‘criminal’ is almost literally a ‘bent’ person. The underlying meaning of the word is ‘bend, curve, hook’, as can be seen in other applications such as ‘shepherd’s staff with a crooked end’, and particularly in the derivative crooked [13]. Crook was borrowed into English from Old Norse krókr ‘hook, corner’. Old French also acquired the Old Norse word, as croc, and passed it on to English in crochet, croquet, crotchet, and encroach; and the derived verbs crocher and crochier produced respectively a new noun croche ‘hook’, source of English crotch [16], and the English verb crouch [14].Moreover, Old French also had croce, resulting from an earlier borrowing of the word’s ultimate West and North Germanic base *krukintroduced into Vulgar Latin as *croccus, and this was eventually to form the basis of English crosier [14] and perhaps lacrosse [18].=> croquet, crosier, crotch, crotchet, crouch, encroach, lacrosse
- crook (n.)
- early 13c., "hook-shaped instrument or weapon," from Old Norse krokr "hook, corner," cognate with Old High German kracho "hooked tool," of obscure origin but perhaps related to a widespread group of Germanic kr- words meaning "bent, hooked." Meaning "swindler" is American English, 1879, from crooked in figurative sense of "dishonest" (1708). Crook "dishonest trick" was in Middle English.
Example
- 1. Ponzi was indeed a strange amalgam of petty visionary and big-time crook .
- 2. By the crook the cook looked through a cookbook before making hooked cookies .
- 3. And mr crook 's plea for yet more waiting does nothing to address the large and increasing under-valuation of the renminbi .
- 4. Far from being honest , he is a big crook .
- 5. A staff with a crook or cross at the end , carried by or before an abbot , a bishop , or an archbishop as a symbol of office .