Word.ws English Dictionary

cranked the handle

cranked the handle is the simple past and past participle of crank the handle.

Meaning of crank the handle

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)

  1. (idiomatic) 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

Questions about cranked the handle

What is cranked the handle the simple past and past participle of?
Cranked the handle is the simple past and past participle of crank the handle.

Words near cranked the handle in the dictionary

  1. cranked it
  2. cranked off
  3. cranked one out
  4. cranked one's hog
  5. cranked out
  6. cranked the handle
  7. cranked the hog
  8. cranked up
  9. cranker
  10. crankers
  11. crankery

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cranked the handle (page history and authors); 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.

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