crooked | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

70 entries found.

early 13c., "bent, curved, in a bent shape," past-participle adjective from crook (v.). In the figurative sense of "dishonest, false, treacherous, not straight in conduct" is from c. 1200. Related: Crookedly; crookedness.

krummhorn (n.)

also crummhorn, "A medieval musical instrument of the clarinet class, having a curved tube and a melancholy sound" [Century Dictionary], 1864, from German, literally "crooked horn," from krumm "curved, crooked" (8c.), from a West Germanic *krumba- (compare Old English crumb, crump "crooked, bent, stooped," source of crumple); for second element see horn (n.).

awry (adv.)

late 14c., "crooked, askew, turned or twisted to one side," from a- (1) "on" + wry (adj.).

bandy-legged (adj.)

"having outward-bent or crooked legs," 1680s, a reference to the bandy, the bent stick used in the Irish field game of bandy (n.).

crinkum-crankum (n.)

1761, "winding or crooked line; anything full of twists and turns," mock Latin based on crank, etc.

crumple (v.)

early 14c., cromplen, crumplen, "press into irregular folds, rumple, wrinkle," also intransitive, "contract into wrinkles, shrink, shrivel," frequentative of crumpen "to curl up" (from Old English crump "bent, crooked"), from Proto-Germanic *krumbo- "to press, squeeze, compress" (source also of German krumm "crooked, warped"). Related: Crumpled; crumpling.

cramp (n.1)

"involuntary and painful muscle contraction," late 14c., from Old French crampe (13c.), from a Frankish or other Germanic word (compare Old High German krapmhe "cramp, spasm," related to kramph "bent, crooked"), from Proto-Germanic *kramp-, forming many words for "bent, crooked," including, via French, crampon.

Writer's cramp is first attested 1842 as the name of a physical affliction of the hand, in discussions of translations of German medical papers (Stromeyer); also known as scrivener's palsy.

kyphosis (n.)

"angular curvature of the spine," 1854 (in a translation from German, where it is attested by 1783), from Greek kyphos "crooked" + -osis.

Campbell

family name, from Gaelic caimbeul "wry or crooked mouth," from cam "crooked, deformed, one-eyed, cross-eyed." Also in surname Cameron. The Campbell Soup Company was started in 1869 in Camden, N.J., by fruit merchant Joseph A. Campbell (1817-1900) and Abraham A. Anderson; Campbell bought Anderson out in 1877. Andy Warhol began painting their cans in 1962.

crabby (adj.)

1520s, in now-obsolete sense "crooked, gnarled, rough," from extended sense of crab (n.1) + -y (2). Meaning "disagreeable, sour, peevish" is attested from 1776, American English. Both senses were found earlier in crabbed.

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