Word.ws English Dictionary

crabwise

crabwise adjective: in the manner of a crab; sideways.

Adjective

crabwise (not comparable)

  1. In the manner of a crab; sideways.
  2. (figuratively) Incidental.
    • Quite apart from their crabwise and often reluctant embrace of religious toleration for a wide variety of religious dissidence, both countries achieved a wider distribution of prosperity than any other part of seventeenth-century Europe.2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 788

Adverb

crabwise (not comparable)

  1. In the manner of a crab; sideways.

Origin of crabwise

From crab + -wise.

Questions about crabwise

What does crabwise mean?
Crabwise means in the manner of a crab; sideways.
What part of speech is crabwise?
Crabwise can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near crabwise in the dictionary

  1. crabwalking
  2. crabwalks
  3. crabweed
  4. crabwich
  5. crabwiches
  6. crabwise
  7. crabwood
  8. crabwoods
  9. Cracchiolo
  10. Cracchiolos
  11. Crace

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crabwise (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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