Word.ws English Dictionary

crock

UK/kɹɒk/US/kɹɑk/

crock noun: a stoneware or earthenware jar or storage container.

Noun (1)

crock (countable and uncountable, plural crocks)

  1. (countable) A stoneware or earthenware jar or storage container.
    • Therefore the Vulgar did about him flock / And cluster thick unto his leaſings vain; / Like fooliſh Flies about an Honey-Crock; / In hope by him great Benefit to gain, / And uncontrolled Freedom to obtain.1590-96, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 1750, The Works of Spenser, Volume 3, page 181
    • He thin swore what he wouldn't do to him iv he didn't show him whare his money was. Tom luked so wicked, an' so bloody-minded, that the little man was quite frightened. "So," sez he, "come along wid me a couple o' fields aff, an' I'll show ye a crock o' gould."1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 375
  2. (countable) A piece of broken pottery, a shard.
  3. (UK, countable, slang) A person who is physically limited by age, illness or injury.
    • old crocks’ home
    • He was getting very proud of the way he had learned to manage his game leg, and it occurred to him that here was a chance of testing his balance. […] “Not so bad that, for a crock,” he told himself, as he lay full length in the sun watching the faint line of the Haripol hills overtopping the ridge...1925, John Buchan, John Macnab, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0300621
  4. (UK, countable, slang) An old or broken-down vehicle (and formerly a horse or ewe).
    • old crocks race
    • I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 6: Hades]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 96
  5. (Canada, US, slang) Silly talk, a foolish belief, a poor excuse, nonsense.
    • That's a bunch of crock.
    • The story is a crock.
  6. (countable) A low stool.
    • I then inquired for the person that belonged to the petticoat; and, to my great surprise, was directed to a very beautiful young damsel, with so pretty a face and shape, that I bid her come out of the crowd, and seated her upon a little crock at my left hand.1709, Isaac Bickerstaff (Richard Steele), The Tatler, 1822, Alexander Chalmers (editor), The Tatler, 2007 Facsimile Edition, page 12
  7. (derogatory, medical slang) A patient who is difficult to treat, especially one who complains of a minor or imagined illness.
    • Mumford (1970) noted that the terms ‘crock’, ‘gomer’, and ‘turkey’, were sometimes utilized by interns to designate different types of undesirable patients, and sometimes used synonymously.1976, Stephen Charles Frankel, Emergency Medical Care in an Urban Area, page 118

Verb (1)

crock (third-person singular simple present crocks, present participle crocking, simple past and past participle crocked)

  1. To break something or injure someone.
    • "That last time I brought down Barry I crocked him. He's in his study now with a sprained ankle. ..."1904, P.G. Wodehouse, The Gold Bat
    • Thousands of cars crocked by dodgy fuel2007 January 3, Daily Mirror
  2. To transfer coloring through abrasion from one item to another.
    • thus producing a permanent, definite color thereon which will not fade or crock, and at the same time using up all of the coloring matter.1917, John H. Pfingsten, "Colouring-matter for leather and method of using the same" http://www.google.com/patents?id=G3xVAAAAEBAJ, US Patent 1371572, page 1
    • Colored fabrics should be dried separately for the first few times to prevent crocking (rubbing off of dye).1964, Isabel Barnum Wingate, Know Your Merchandise, page 109
  3. To cover the drain holes of a planter with stones or similar material, in order to ensure proper drainage.
    • The pots should be crocked for drainage to one-half their depth and the plants made moderately firm in the compost, as already indicated...1900, H.A. Burberry, The Amateur Orchid Cultivators' Guide Book, page 21
  4. (dialectal, transitive) To put or store (something) in a crock or pot.
    • She filled the pail and carried it down to the springhouse to crock it and leave it to cool.1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug

Noun (2)

crock (uncountable)

  1. The loose black particles collected from combustion, as on pots and kettles, or in a chimney; soot; smut.
    • […] “here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!”1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter VII, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 109
  2. Colouring matter that rubs off from cloth.

Verb (2)

crock (third-person singular simple present crocks, present participle crocking, simple past and past participle crocked)

  1. (intransitive) To give off crock or smut.

Proper noun capitalized: Crock

Crock (plural Crocks)

  1. A surname.

crock meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali

crock in Hindi

क्रॉक

crock in Tamil

மட்கலம், மண்பாண்டம்

crock in Marathi

क्रॉक, क्रोक

crock in Bengali

মাটির পাত্র, টুকরো, পুরানো মানুষ
More languagesFewer languages
crock in Telugu
క్రోక్
crock in Malayalam
മൺപാത്രം, തകർന്നടിഞ്ഞ ആൾ, ഭരണി
crock in Kannada
ಕ್ರೋಕ್
crock in Punjabi
ਕ੍ਰੌਕ, ਕਰੌਕ
crock in Gujarati
ક્રોક, ક્રૉક
crock in Odia
କ୍ରକ୍
crock in Persian
خنور xanur

Examples of crock in a sentence

  • Ferreira ... peremptorily expunges England’s World Cup chances by crocking Wayne Rooney.2006 April 30, The Sunday Times:
  • In leather garments, lining also prevents crocking of color onto skin or garments worn underneath.2002, Sandy Scrivano, Sewing With Leather & Suede, →ISBN, page 95:

All 22 example sentences with crock

Synonyms of crock

12 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of crock

Forms of crock

Noun
pluralcrocks
Verb
third-person singular presentcrocks
present participlecrocking
past participlecrocked
pastcrocked
Proper noun
pluralCrocks

Plural of crock: crocks

Origin of crock

From Middle English crok, crokke (“earthenware jar, pot, or other container; cauldron; belly, stomach”) [and other forms], from Old English crocc, crocca (“crock, pot, vessel”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *krokku, *krokkō, from Proto-Germanic *krukkō, *krukkô (“vessel”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *grewg- (“vessel”). The English word is cognate with Danish and Norwegian krukke (“jar”), Dutch kruik (“jar, jug”), regional German Kruke (“crock”), Icelandic krukka (“pot, jar”), Old English crōg, crōh (“crock, pitcher, vessel”). See also cruse.

Compare Welsh croeg (“cover”), Scots crochit (“covered”).

Words formed from crock

Phrases with crock

Words that rhyme with crock

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crock

What does crock mean?
Crock means a stoneware or earthenware jar or storage container.
What is crock in Hindi?
Crock in Hindi is क्रॉक. See Crock meaning in Hindi.
How do you use crock in a sentence?
Ferreira ... peremptorily expunges England’s World Cup chances by crocking Wayne Rooney.
What part of speech is crock?
Crock can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce crock?
Crock is pronounced /kɹɒk/ (UK).
What is the plural of crock?
The plural of crock is crocks.

Words near crock in the dictionary

  1. crocins
  2. crocipodin
  3. crocitate
  4. crocitation
  5. crocitations
  6. crock
  7. crock cheese
  8. crock cheeses
  9. crock haircut
  10. crock haircuts
  11. crock of gold

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crock (page history and authors); Crock (page history and authors); crock (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crock (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crock (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crock (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crock (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crock (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crock (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crock (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crock (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crock (Odia, 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-crock.ogg.

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