Word.ws English Dictionary

crank

UK/kɹænk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/kɹaŋk/

crank adjective: hard; difficult. Also the clipping of crankshaft.

crank: hard; difficult
Image: Suzette - www.suzette.nu from Arnhem, Netherlands, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

crank (comparative cranker, superlative crankest)

  1. (dialectal) Hard; difficult.
  2. (informal) Strange; weird; odd.
  3. (dialectal) Bent; twisted; crooked; distorted; out of repair.
  4. Sick; unwell.
    Synonyms:
    infirm
  5. Liable to capsize because of poorly stowed cargo or insufficient ballast.
    • This ship is so crank and walty
      I fear our grave she will be!1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Phantom Ship
    • The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank.1833, Edgar Allan Poe, MS. Found in a Bottle
  6. Full of spirit; brisk; lively; sprightly; overconfident; opinionated.
    • He who was a little before bedred[…]was now cranke and lustie.1548, Nicolas Udall, The first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente
    • If you strong electioners did not think you were among the elect, you would not be so crank about it.1856, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Noun (1)

crank (plural cranks)

  1. (dialectal) An ailment, ache.
  2. (informal) An ill-tempered or nasty person.
    • Billy-Bob is a nasty old crank! He chased my cat away.
  3. A twist or turn of the mind; caprice; whim;
  4. A fit of temper or passion.
    • Violent of temper; subject to sudden cranks.1858–1865, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC
  5. (UK, dated, informal) A person who is considered strange or odd by others, and may behave in unconventional ways.
    • John is a crank because he talks to himself.
    • Persons whom the Americans since Guiteau’s trial have begun to designate as ‘cranks’—that is to say, persons of disordered mind, in whom the itch of notoriety supplies the lack of any higher ambition.1882 January 14, Pall Mall Gazette
  6. (informal) An amateur in science or other technical subjects who persistently advocates flawed theories.
    • That crank next door thinks he’s created cold fusion in his garage.
  7. (archaic, slang) A baseball fan.
  8. (obsolete) A sick person; an invalid.
    • Thou art a counterfeit crank, a cheater.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC

Noun (2)

crank (plural cranks)

  1. A bent piece of an axle or shaft, or an attached arm perpendicular, or nearly so, to the end of a shaft or wheel, used to impart a rotation to a wheel or other mechanical device; also used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion.
    • I grind my coffee by hand with a coffee grinder with a crank handle.
  2. The act of converting power into motion, by turning a crankshaft.
    • Yes, a crank was all it needed to start.
    • Give it a forceful crank.
  3. (archaic) Any bend, turn, or winding, as of a passage.
    • So many turning cranks these have, so many crooks.1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, The Cantos of Mutabilitie Canto 7
  4. (US, slang) Synonym of methamphetamine.
    • Danny got abscesses from shooting all that bathtub crank.
    Synonyms:
    methamphetamine
  5. (rare) A twist or turn in speech; word play consisting in a change of the form or meaning of a word.
    • Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,a. 1645, John Milton, “L’Allegro”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 31
  6. (slang) The penis.
    • It was going to be hard not to blow with a girl like her sucking on his crank.2013, Reggie Chesterfield, Scoundrel, page 57

Verb

crank (third-person singular simple present cranks, present participle cranking, simple past and past participle cranked or (dialectal) crunk)

  1. (transitive) To turn by means of a crank.
    • Motorists had to crank their engine by hand.
  2. (intransitive) To turn a crank.
    • He's been cranking all day and yet it refuses to crank.
  3. (intransitive) To turn.
    • He's been cranking all day and yet it refuses to crank.
  4. (transitive) To cause to spin via other means, as though turned by a crank.
    • I turn the key and crank the engine; yet it doesn't turn over
    • Crank it up!
  5. (intransitive) To act in a cranky manner; to behave unreasonably and irritably, especially through complaining.
    • Quit cranking about your spilt milk!
  6. (intransitive) To be running at a high level of output or effort.
    • By one hour into the shift, the boys were really cranking.
    • Better computers use variable speed fans so they run at top speed only when the computer is really cranking2009, Carol Baroudi, Jeffrey Hill, Arnold Reinhold, Green IT For Dummies
  7. (dated, intransitive) To run with a winding course; to double; to crook; to wind and turn.
    • See how this river comes me cranking in.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Proper noun capitalized: Crank

Crank (countable and uncountable, plural Cranks)

  1. A surname.
  2. A small village in Rainford parish, St Helens borough, Merseyside, England (OS grid ref SJ5099).

Also used as

crank is also the clipping of crankshaft.

crank meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

crank in Marathi

क्रँक, क्रॅंक, क्रॅंक करण्यासाठी

crank in Urdu

کرینک, کرینک کرنا

crank in Bengali

ক্র্যাঙ্ক, ক্রাঙ্ক, ক্রেঙ্ক

crank in Telugu

క్రాంక్, క్ర్యాంక్, క్రాంక్ చేయడానికి
More languagesFewer languages
crank in Malayalam
ക്രാങ്ക്, ക്രങ്ക്, ക്രാങ്ക് ചെയ്യാൻ
crank in Kannada
ಕ್ರ್ಯಾಂಕ್, ಕ್ರಾಂಕ್, ಕ್ರ್ಯಾಂಕ್ ಮಾಡಲು
crank in Punjabi
ਕ੍ਰੈਂਕ, ਕ੍ਰੈਂਕ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ, ਕਰੰਕ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
crank in Gujarati
ક્રેન્ક, ક્રેંક, ક્રેન્ક કરવા માટે
crank in Odia
କ୍ରାଙ୍କ, କ୍ର୍ଯ଼ାଙ୍କ, କ୍ର୍ଯ଼ାଙ୍କ୍
crank in Nepali
क्र्याङ्क, क्र्यान्क, क्रेङ्क
crank in Arabic
مِرْفَق mirfaq
crank in Vietnamese
giò đĩa

Examples of crank in a sentence

  • The raw meat cranks are in dead earnest.1901 July 19, “Gleanings”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 10, page 318:
  • The old crank wanted to actually make people.c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City...
  • When we were playing at the top of our ability and really cranking, the whole thing could sound like a jet plane taking off in the club.2009, Mike Edison, I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, ...:
  • expected that the NVA and VC were in a position to dish out what they're dishing out, and the rumor mill is really cranking overtime.2011, P. L. Nelson, The Incessant Voice of War: The Black Rose Conspiracies, page 64:

All 40 example sentences with crank

Synonyms of crank

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of crank

Forms of crank

Adjective
comparativecranker
superlativecrankest
Noun
pluralcranks
Verb
third-person singular presentcranks
present participlecranking
past participlecranked
pastcranked
past participle (dialectal)crunk
past (dialectal)crunk
Proper noun
pluralCranks

Past tense of crank: cranked

Plural of crank: cranks

Origin of crank

From Dutch or Low German krank, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *krank, from Proto-Germanic *krangaz, *krankaz (“bent; weak”). Cognate with Scots crank, krank, German krank (“sick”).

From Middle English crank, cronk, from a shortening of Old English crancstæf (“weaving tool, crank”, literally “bent or crooked staff”), the first element ultimately related to Etymology 1 above.

Words formed from crank

Phrases with crank

6 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with crank

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crank

What does crank mean?
Crank means hard; difficult.
What is crank in Marathi?
Crank in Marathi is क्रँक, क्रॅंक, क्रॅंक करण्यासाठी. See Crank meaning in Marathi.
How do you use crank in a sentence?
The raw meat cranks are in dead earnest.
What part of speech is crank?
Crank can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce crank?
Crank is pronounced /kɹænk/ (UK).

Words near crank in the dictionary

  1. craniovisceral
  2. cranium
  3. craniums
  4. craniversaries
  5. craniversary
  6. crank
  7. crank angle
  8. crank angle degree
  9. crank angle degrees
  10. crank angles
  11. crank arm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crank (page history and authors); Crank (page history and authors); crank (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crank (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-crank.ogg.

Cite this entry: “crank.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crank. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.