crank the handle
crank the handle verb: to perform a process; to do some work.
Verb
crank the handle (third-person singular simple present cranks the handle, present participle cranking the handle, simple past and past participle cranked the handle)
- To perform a process; to do some work.
- There are various ways you can do this, including creating capacity by building a strong team, or by setting the sales stream up in such a way that anyone can crank the handle and keep the products going out and the customer demand coming in.2006, Rebecca Jordan, Kirsty Weir, In Good Company: The essential business start-up guide for women, A & C Black, page 229
- “What do you mean?” said Ozbek. “All he has to do is slide some paper in there, ink the quill and crank the handle”2008, Brad Thor, The Last Patriot, Atria Books
Forms of crank the handle
| third-person singular present | cranks the handle |
|---|---|
| present participle | cranking the handle |
| past participle | cranked the handle |
| past | cranked the handle |
Questions about crank the handle
- What does crank the handle mean?
- Crank the handle means to perform a process; to do some work.
- What part of speech is crank the handle?
- Crank the handle is a verb.
- What is the past tense of crank the handle?
- The past tense of crank the handle is cranked the handle.
Words near crank the handle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: crank the handle (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-crank the handle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “crank the handle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crank_the_handle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.