crab
Pluralcrabs
Pluralcrabs
- 1A crustacean with a hard shell, a flat body, and five pairs of legs, the front pair formed into claws; also similar animals such as hermit crabs.
The crab raised its claws when the diver reached toward it.
At low tide, dozens of crabs scurried across the exposed flats.
UsageUse a crab or crabs for the animals, and crab with no article for the meat: fresh crab.
- 2The edible meat of the crustacean, served as food.
The chef served crab steamed and cracked in the shell.
He spread sweet crab over warm toast for an appetizer.
Note
Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax (1959) serves "some pickled crab" that is removed, untouched, to make way for a damson pie.
- 3A habitually bad-tempered or irritable person.
The old crab next door shouts whenever a ball lands in his yard.
She turns into a crab whenever she misses her afternoon coffee.
UsageThe adjective crabby is common too: a crabby mood.
Similargrouch, grump, crank, curmudgeon
- 4To fish for crabs, typically using baited lines, traps, or nets.
Every summer they crab along the tidal creeks at dawn.
He prefers to crab from a small boat rather than the pier.
UsageOften used in the phrase go crabbing.
- 5A horseshoe crab: a marine arthropod with a domed, horseshoe-shaped shell and a long, pointed tail, not a true crab.
The crab she found at the tide line had a horseshoe-shaped shell and a sharp, spikelike tail.
Each May the horseshoe crabs come ashore to spawn, and shorebirds gather to eat the eggs the crabs leave in the sand.
- 6A crab apple: a small, sour apple that grows wild, or the tree that bears it.
Every fall she picks the little sour fruit from the old crab by the barn and boils it into jelly.
Villagers once pressed wild crabs into a rough, tangy cider.
UsageMost people say crab apple; crab alone can be mistaken for the sea animal.
Note
A different word from the shellfish that happens to share its spelling. This crab is Middle English for a wild apple, probably from North Germanic, and related to the Swedish dialect word skrabba, "sour apple." Shakespeare's The Tempest offers to lead the way "where crabs grow," and in 1894 Robert Blatchford still calls the wild crab acrid. Crab apple is the clearer name today.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- The apple sense has a separate etymology from the shellfish sense: Middle English crabbe, plausibly from North Germanic and cognate with Swedish dialect skrabba, meaning sour apple. en.wiktionary.org
- William Shakespeare wrote The Tempest. gutenberg.org
- In The Tempest, Caliban offers to bring Stephano where crab apples grow, using the quoted words. gutenberg.org
- Robert Blatchford describes the wild crab as acrid. marxists.org
- The passage appeared in 1894 in Blatchford's essay “The New Party in the North”, in The New Party, described by some of its members, edited by Andrew Reid. marxists.org
Less common meanings
- 7The condition of being infested with pubic lice (Pthirus pubis), which live mainly in the hair around the genitals.
After days of itching, he realized he had picked up crabs.
The doctor confirmed a case of crabs and prescribed a medicated wash.
UsageUsed in the plural with a plural verb: catch crabs, have crabs. Doctors say pubic lice.
- 8To complain or grumble in a bad-tempered way.
Passengers crab about delays no matter the cause.
Stop crabbing and lend a hand with the dishes.
UsageYou crab about a problem, sometimes at the person listening.
Similarcomplain, grumble, gripe, whine, grouse
Note
A grumbling verb that takes two prepositions. You crab about the thing that bothers you, as when Tom warns that crabbing about the heat makes it worse in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), and at the person stuck listening, as in Stephen King's Cujo (1981). Both the crustacean and the sour crab apple have been proposed as the source of this meaning.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925. en.wikisource.org
- Tom says that crabbing about the heat makes it worse. gutenberg.org
- Stephen King wrote Cujo. stephenking.com
- Cujo was first published in 1981. stephenking.com
- Cujo contains an example of crabbing at the person listening. en.wiktionary.org
- 9To move sideways or at an angle, as a crab does, or to move a camera sideways along a track.
The small craft will crab toward the rocks in the cross-current.
Without correction the canoe crabbed steadily downstream.
UsageOften crab sideways, which is normal, or with a direction: crab toward the rocks, crab across the current.
- 10To move while keeping low and clinging to nearby surfaces.
Keeping low, the climber had to crab across the wet boulders, gripping every handhold she could find.
He crabbed up the rock face, gripping each handhold tightly.
UsageOften in crab your way along, up or down something.
Similarcreep, crawl, scramble, scuttle
Note
Ronan Frost's White Peak (2019) has a climber who "crabbed his way down another ninety feet of rock chimney." Where the drifting verb is about direction, this one is about posture and grip.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- White Peak is by Ronan Frost. agenceelianebenisti.com
- The book contains the quoted description of a climber descending another ninety feet of rock chimney. en.wiktionary.org
- 11In rowing, a mishap in which an oar blade is caught by the water and cannot be withdrawn cleanly, checking the boat and sometimes forcing the oar under the rigger.
The novice caught a crab fifty meters from the line.
A crab near the start cost them several boat lengths.
UsageUsually in the fixed phrase catch a crab.
Note
The blade fails to come out of the water cleanly, the water grips and drags it, and the rower may be jolted or the boat stalled. In a bad crab the oar is forced down and under the rigger. In a race, a single crab can cost a crew several lengths.
- 12In aviation, the angle by which an aircraft's nose is pointed upwind of its ground track to offset a crosswind during a landing approach.
On final approach the captain set a noticeable crab to counter the gusting wind.
The instructor explained how much crab the landing would require.
Note
The nose points into the wind while the aircraft tracks the runway line, so from the ground it seems to sidle in. The action itself has its own verb, steering sideways against the wind.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- During a crabbed approach, the nose points into the wind while the aircraft follows the runway line, giving an impression of sideways flight. en.wikipedia.org
- 13In aviation, to fly an aircraft angled sideways against an air current so that it holds a straight-line course.
The instructor showed her how to crab the aircraft against the crosswind on final approach.
He crabbed the glider sideways to hold the ridge line.
Note
The pilot's action behind the crab angle: the nose is turned partly into the wind so that the aircraft's path over the ground stays straight.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Crabbing uses a heading angled into the wind to maintain the intended ground track. safetyfirst.airbus.com
- 14To back out of something one had agreed to.
Note
A rare use with a comic pedigree: P. G. Wodehouse gives it to a Wooster in Jeeves in the Offing (1960). It pairs with out of, as in crab out of a trip or a deal, and suggests a sidling retreat rather than a firm refusal. In everyday writing, back out or pull out will be understood more readily.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- P. G. Wodehouse uses crab in Wooster's narration in Jeeves in the Offing. en.wiktionary.org
- Jeeves in the Offing was first published as a book in 1960. en.wikipedia.org
- 15An unsold book returned to its publisher.
Similarreturn
Note
A bookseller's word with a joke inside it. Unsold copies went back to the publisher between Christmas and Easter, and the trade called them krebse or crabs, probably because they walked backwards. Payne's Universum explains the term in 1844. The Publishers Weekly in 1892 still speaks of the publisher's "much dreaded season of crabs." The usage is dated now.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Booksellers called unsold books returned to publishers crabs. en.wiktionary.org
- Unsold copies were returned between Christmas and Easter. en.wiktionary.org
- The returned copies were called krebse or crabs, probably because they went backwards. en.wiktionary.org
- The Publishers Weekly used the quoted wording in 1892. en.wiktionary.org
- 16Informal short form of carabiner: a metal clip with a spring-loaded gate, used by climbers to link ropes, harnesses, and anchors.
- 17To spoil or ruin something, especially a plan or opportunity.
‘Just so we understand each other,’ he said after a pause. ‘If you crab this case, you'll be in a jam.’
1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell - 18A fault in an object that appears normal but makes it inconvenient or troublesome to use.
- 19A cudgel made from the wood of the crab tree.
- 20A geared winch or capstan used for hoisting heavy loads or hauling ships.
- 21A playing card of the rank three.
- 22In a ropewalk, a machine for stretching yarn taut while rope is being made.
- 23A claw used to anchor a portable machine in place during operation.
- 24A tree native to South America, Carapa guianensis.
- 25In early air combat, to angle an aircraft a little to one side of its path toward an enemy, because its guns could not shoot through the propeller.
- 26To put someone in a cross, sullen mood.
- 27To beat someone with a club, especially one cut from crab-apple wood.
- 28To affront someone or hurt their feelings.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English "crabbe," from Old English "crabba" (crab, crayfish), going back through Proto-Germanic to a root *krabbōną meaning "to scratch" and an even older Proto-Indo-European root meaning "scratch, claw at." It is related to Dutch "krab" and Swedish "krabba," and possibly to English "creep."
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- English crab descends through Middle English crabbe from Old English crabba. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English crabba meant crab or crayfish. en.wiktionary.org
- The reconstructed Proto-Germanic verb *krabbōną is glossed as “to scratch,” not “to creep, crawl.” en.wiktionary.org
- The proposed ancestry extends to a Proto-Indo-European root associated with scratching. en.wiktionary.org
- Crab is related to Dutch krab and Swedish krabba. en.wiktionary.org
- Crab may be related to English creep. en.wiktionary.org
A Swedish dialect word, skrabba ("sour apple"), is a cognate. The English word came from Middle English crabbe, "wild apple," which is Germanic and plausibly North Germanic in origin.