The wonderful reign of Queen Elizabeth has everyone worried about what will happen when her crank of a son takes the throne.
If you watch some of Beck's more incendiary moments through the eyes of a crank, you get a very different perspective.
An uncomfortable urinary infection is going to feel way worse than those few minutes you spent trying to crank out your work.
I belong to the “Soccer Hater” demographic – middle-aged Republican crank with long, blonde hair and a great pair of gams.
Before you dismiss me as a crank, let me be clear: Global warming may be the most serious threat of our time.
After the proper level in each trough has been reached the excess oil overflows into the bottom of the crank case.
"Something animates him—when you turn his crank," replied the King.
It consists of a disk of metal rotated by a crank mounted on a suitable stand.
Asabri laughed so that for a moment he could not bend over to crank his car.
When she thought of God at all, it was as a relentless giant turning the crank that kept the sky going round.
Old English *cranc, implied in crancstæf "a weaver's instrument," crencestre "female weaver, spinster," from Proto-Germanic base *krank-, and related to crincan "to bend, yield" (see crinkle, cringe). English retains the literal sense of the ancient root, while German and Dutch krank "sick," formerly "weak, small," is a figurative use.
The sense of "an eccentric person," especially one who is irrationally fixated, is first recorded 1833, said to be from the crank of a barrel organ, which makes it play the same tune over and over; but more likely a back-formation from cranky (q.v.). Meaning "methamphetamine" attested by 1989.
1590s, "to zig-zag," from crank (n.). Meaning "to turn a crank" is first attested 1908, with reference to automobile engines. Related: Cranked; cranking.
modifier
noun
[perhaps fr the crank of a barrel organ, by which one can play the same tune over and over again; applied by Donn Piatt to the publisher Horace Greeley]
(Automotive slang) Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 megaflops, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorised operations."
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-01)
