Word Direct Answers

What does "crook" mean?

Crook: 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 stafu. He left his crook, he left his flocks. Prior.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A pothook. "As black as the crook." Sir W. Scott.
  2. 3.An artifice; trick; tricky device; subterfuge. For all yuor brags, hooks, and crooks. Cranmer.
  3. 4.(Mus.) A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.
  4. 5.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.
  5. 6.To turn from a straight line; to bend; to curve. Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee. Shak.
  6. 7.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. Ascham. What soever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends. Bacon.
  7. 8.To bend; to curve; to wind; to have a curvature. " The port . . . crooketh like a bow." Phaer. Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards. Camden.

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