Word.ws English Dictionary

crook

UK/kɹʊk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/kɹɵk/

crook noun: a bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure.

crook: a bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure
Image: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

crook (plural crooks)

  1. A bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure.
    • She held the baby in the crook of her arm.
    • he walks bye lanes, and crooks1842, William Edward Hoskins, De Valencourt
  2. A bending of the knee; a genuflection.
  3. A bent or curved part; a curving piece or portion (of anything).
    • the crook of a cane
    • It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park...1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “His Own People”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 6
  4. A person who steals, lies, cheats, or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal; a scoundrel, scofflaw, lawbreaker, rogue, or miscreant.
    • In these early days of silent pictures, the accent was chiefly on thrills and danger as provided by supposedly unstoppable locomotives with crooks or maniacs on the footplate.1958 February, David Gunston, “Railways on the Screen”, in Railway Magazine, page 88
    • "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I′m not a crook. I′ve earned everything I′ve got."1973 November 17, Richard Nixon, reported 1973 November 18, The Washington Post, Nixon Tells Editors, ‘I'm Not a Crook’
    Synonyms:
    criminal
  5. (obsolete) A lock or curl of hair.
  6. (obsolete) A support beam consisting of a post with a cross-beam resting upon it; a bracket or truss consisting of a vertical piece, a horizontal piece, and a strut.
  7. A specialized staff with a semi-circular bend (a "hook") at one end used by shepherds to control their herds.
    • Even though I walk through a / valley dark as death / I fear no evil, for thou art with me, / thy staff and thy crook are my / comfort.1970, The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford Study Edition, published 1976, Oxford University Press, Psalms 23-4, p.583
  8. A bishop's standard staff of office.
  9. An artifice; a trick; a contrivance.
    • for all your brags, hooks, and crooksc. 1547, Thomas Cranmer, Against Transubstantiation
  10. A pothook.
  11. A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.

Verb

crook (third-person singular simple present crooks, present participle crooking, simple past and past participle crooked)

  1. (transitive) To bend, or form into a hook.
    • He crooked his finger toward me.
    • No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, / And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee / Where thrift may follow fawning.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  2. (intransitive) To become bent or hooked.
  3. To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist.
    • For the foundation of youthe well ſet (as Plato doth ſaye) the whole bodye of the common wealthe ſhall flouriſhe thereafter. If the younge tree growe croked, when it is oulde, a man ſhall rather breake it than ſtreight it. And I thincke there is no one thinge that crokes youthe more then ſuch...1544 (date written; published 1571), Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, the Schole, or Partitions, of Shooting. […], London: […] Thomas Marshe, →OCLC; republished in The English Works of Roger Ascham, […]...
    • The referring of all to a man's self, is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil, in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass...1597, Francis Bacon, “Of Wisdom For a Man's Self,”, in The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Adjective

crook (comparative crooker, superlative crookest)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Bad, unsatisfactory, not up to standard.
    • That work you did on my car is crook, mate.
    • Not turning up for training was pretty crook.
  2. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Ill, sick.
    • I′m feeling a bit crook.
  3. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Annoyed, angry; upset.
    • be crook at/about; go crook at
    • Ann explained to the teacher what had happened and the nuns went crook at me too.2006, Jimmy Butt, Felicity Dargan, I've Been Bloody Lucky: The Story of an Orphan Named Jimmy Butt, page 17

Proper noun capitalized: Crook

Crook

  1. A town (unparished) in County Durham, England (OS grid ref NZ1635).
  2. A village and civil parish (served by Crook and Winster Parish Council) in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England, previously in South Lakeland district (OS grid ref SD4695).
  3. A statutory town in Logan County, Colorado, United States, named after George Crook.
  4. An unincorporated community in Osage County, Missouri, United States, so named because of a local merchant's business practices (thus being derived from crook (thief)).
  5. A surname.

crook meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Bengali and Malayalam

crook in Tamil

ஏமாற்றுக்காரன், குற்றவாளி, வஞ்சகன், வளை கோல், வாங்குகோல்

crook in Marathi

क्रूक

crook in Bengali

বাঁকা লাঠি, হুক, প্রতারক

crook in Malayalam

വക്രത, കൊളുത്തുപോലെ വളഞ്ഞ ആയുധം, വളവ്, കൂന്
More languagesFewer languages
crook in Kannada
ತಿರುವು, ಬಾಗಿದ ಕೋಲು, ಕಳ್ಳ, ಮೋಸಗಾರ
crook in Gujarati
ક્રૂક
crook in Odia
କ୍ରୁକ
crook in Nepali
क्रुक, क्रूक, क्रुक गर्न
crook in Indonesian
maling, bajingan

Examples of crook in a sentence

  • “[…]In the following cases: physical defect in the married parties, desertion without communication for five years,” he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair[…].1917, Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett, Anna Karenina, Part 4, Chapter 5:
  • For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master, or state.1597, Francis Bacon, “Of Wisdom For a Man's Self,”, in The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral:
  • I went home on the tram, then Mum went crook at me because I was late getting home—I had tickets for Mum and her friend to go to the Regent that night and she was annoyed because I was late.2007, Jo Wainer, Bess: Lost: Illegal Abortion Stories, page 159:
  • I went crook at them for not telling me and as soon as she was well enough I took her home to the camping area and she soon picked up.2007, Ruby Langford Ginibi, Don′t Take Your Love to Town, page 100:

All 40 example sentences with crook

Synonyms of crook

Forms of crook

Noun
pluralcrooks
Verb
third-person singular presentcrooks
present participlecrooking
past participlecrooked
pastcrooked
Adjective
comparativecrooker
superlativecrookest

Past tense of crook: crooked

Plural of crook: crooks

Origin of crook

From Middle English croke, crok, from Old English *crōc (“hook, bend, crook”), from Proto-West Germanic *krōk, from Proto-Germanic *krōkaz (“bend, hook”), from Proto-Indo-European *greg- (“tracery, basket, bend”). Cognate with Dutch kreuk (“a bend, fold, wrinkle”), Middle Low German kroke, krake (“fold, wrinkle”), Danish krog (“crook, hook”), Swedish krok (“crook, hook”), Icelandic krókur (“hook”). Compare typologically Czech křivák (< křivý < Proto-Slavic *krivъ, whence also *krivьda).

From Middle English crooken, croken, crokien, from Old English *crōcian, from Proto-West Germanic *krōkōn (“to bend, wrinkle”), from the noun (see above). Cognate with Dutch kreuken (“to crease, rumple”), German Low German kröken (“to bend, offend, suppress”).

From crooked (“dishonestly come by”).

Words formed from crook

Phrases with crook

Words that rhyme with crook

38 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crook

What does crook mean?
Crook means a bend; turn; curve; curvature; a flexure.
What is crook in Tamil?
Crook in Tamil is ஏமாற்றுக்காரன், குற்றவாளி, வஞ்சகன். See Crook meaning in Tamil.
How do you use crook in a sentence?
“[…]In the following cases: physical defect in the married parties, desertion without communication for five years,” he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair[…].
What part of speech is crook?
Crook can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce crook?
Crook is pronounced /kɹʊk/ (UK).
What is the plural of crook?
The plural of crook is crooks.

Words near crook in the dictionary

  1. Crooble
  2. croodle
  3. croodled
  4. croodles
  5. croodling
  6. crook
  7. crook and nanny
  8. crook as Rookwood
  9. Crook County
  10. crook in the lot
  11. Crook of Devon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crook (page history and authors); Crook (page history and authors); crook (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crook (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crook (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crook (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crook (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crook (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crook (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crook (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-AU ck1 crook.ogg.

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