crabs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of crab.

   Fishermen hauled dozens of crabs from their traps before noon.

   The crabs buried themselves in the sand as the tide came in.

   Note

   An ordinary -s plural, but one the dinner table tends to avoid. As food the word is uncountable, so diners eat crab while fishermen haul crabs. The plural also covers the related Anomura and horseshoe crabs, and it can describe more than one bad-tempered person. Context matters, since the slang word for pubic lice shares the spelling exactly.

2. 2
   nounslangplural

   Lice that infest human pubic hair, causing persistent itching.

   A nurse explained how to treat crabs and wash all his bedding.

   She picked up crabs from contaminated towels at the gym.

   Note

   A slang name that exists only in the plural and takes a plural verb: crabs are stubborn, and people catch, pick up or treat them. It is the everyday word, frank but not clinical. Pubic lice is the term for a formal or medical setting. Because the spelling matches the plural for the sea creatures, the verb around it usually settles which meaning is intended.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of crab.

   Whenever plans change, she crabs about it for hours.

   My neighbor crabs at the kids for playing too loudly.

   Note

   One spelling serves several unrelated verbs. When it means grumbling, it takes about or at (she crabs about the schedule), or a direct object (he crabs the decision). A boat that crabs drifts sideways, the way a crab moves. In US slang, someone who crabs a deal ruins it. The plain fishing sense survives as well.

4. 4
   nounslangplural

   A roll of the dice showing two aces: that is, two ones.

   The shooter threw crabs on his first toss and groaned in dismay.

   Crabs at the wrong moment can wipe out a night's winnings.

   Note

   Gambling slang from the dice table, where an ace is the single-pip face, and a pair of them makes the lowest possible throw. Snake eyes names the same roll. The word is plural-only and behaves like the name of an outcome, so a player throws crabs or rolls crabs, never a crab.

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