CROOK • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Crook

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/krʊk/ Listen

noun

crook n.

1.

A bend, turn, or curve; curvature; flexure. "Through lanes, and crooks, and darkness."

2.

Any implement having a bent or crooked end. Especially:

(a)

The staff used by a shepherd, the hook of which serves to hold a runaway sheep.

(b)

A bishop's staff of office. Cf. Pastoral staff. "He left his crook, he left his flocks."

3.

A pothook. "As black as the crook."

4.

An artifice; trick; tricky device; subterfuge. "For all yuor brags, hooks, and crooks."

5.

(Mus.) A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.

6.

A person given to fraudulent practices; an accomplice of thieves, forgers, etc. (Cant, U.S.)

By hook or by crook, in some way or other; by fair means or foul.

verb

Crook v. t. (past & past part. crooked; pres. part. crooking)

1.

To turn from a straight line; to bend; to curve. "Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee."

2.

To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist. (Archaic) "There is no one thing that crooks youth more than such unlawfull games." "What soever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends."

Crook v. i. To bend; to curve; to wind; to have a curvature. " The port... crooketh like a bow." "Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards."

See images of 'Crook'

Etymology of 'Crook'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Crook" Quotes from Famous Books

... hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flu'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew. Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouths like bells, Each under each: a cry more tuneable Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd ...

— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... If you have not broken one commandment, let us see whether we cannot convict you of the breach of another. If you are not a swindler or forger, you are guilty of arson or burglary. By hook or by crook you shall not escape. Are you to suffer or I? What does it matter to you who are going off the stage, to receive a slight additional daub upon a character so deeply stained already? But think of me, the immaculate lover of Truth, so observant (as ...

— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... the immensity of stage and auditorium. There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the "School for Scandal" in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of the "Black Crook" ...

— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... graves of memory render up their dead.' Again I hear from the lips of Barrett: 'Take away the sword; States can be saved without it!' 'How love, like death, levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook ...

— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... Rand said, when it was evident that she was not going to continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggest crook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to live up—or down—to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's my status? What authority, if any, have I to ...

— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

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