The wonderful reign of Queen Elizabeth has everyone worried about what will happen when her crank of a son takes the throne.
Before the marriage it was already obvious that he was a bit of a crank.
I belong to the “Soccer Hater” demographic – middle-aged Republican crank with long, blonde hair and a great pair of gams.
I belong to the “Soccer Hater” demographic—middle-aged Republican crank with long, blonde hair and a great pair of gams.
An uncomfortable urinary infection is going to feel way worse than those few minutes you spent trying to crank out your work.
In this machine, the barrel was fitted with a crank, and rotated by handle.
The crank is a person who holds views which to us seem ridiculous.
Nothing now remains to be made except the crank and the flywheel.
Its center is drilled out and it is soldered to the crank as illustrated in Fig. 54.
This crank is mounted on a crankshaft carried on the metal tube M.
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]
