crabbing

Verb

crab (third-person singular simple present crabs, present participle crabbing, simple past and past participle crabbed)

1. (intransitive) To fish for crabs.
2. (US, slang, transitive) To ruin.
   • I thought at the time that that little speech meant a savin' of eight dollars,[…] But the Missus crabbed it a few minutes after her and Bess come in the room.1916, Ring W. Lardner, “Three Kings and a Pair”, in The Saturday Evening Post
3. (intransitive) To complain.
   • “The thing to do is to forget about the heat,” said Tom impatiently. “You make it ten times worse by crabbing about it.”1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 7, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, page 127
4. (transitive) To complain about.
   • Well, because of this state of things they crabbed his scheme from the first, ridiculed it, wrote against it, spread broadcast a feeling of distrust.2007, Douglas Newton, Dr. Odin, page 24
5. (intransitive) To drift or move sideways or to leeward (by analogy with the movement of a crab).
   • Mutt stalked forward, matching him, step for step, crabbing sideways the way wolves do when they're going for the kill.2000, Dana Stabenow, Midnight Come Again, →ISBN, page 251
6. To move in a manner that involves keeping low and clinging to surfaces.
   • Time slowed down then, became liquid in the aftermath of his grotesque, unfolding limbs; he crabbed his way down the faded line, rocking back and forth in braces he would use all his life.2011, Robert Vivian, The Least Cricket of Evening, page 108

See all 38 meanings of crab