crank
Pluralcranks
Pluralcranks
Formscranks, cranking, cranked
- 1A bent part of an axle or shaft, or an arm set roughly perpendicular to the end of a shaft or wheel, used to turn a mechanism or convert between rotary and reciprocating motion.
The awning rolls out with a crank handle mounted beside the patio door.
In a steam engine, the piston rod pushes on a crank that turns the flywheel.
Note
The machine part takes its name from its shape. The coffee grinder's crank handle is the everyday case, with the noun working as a modifier.
- 2To operate or perform at a high level of output or effort.
Two weeks before launch, the whole team was really cranking, shipping fixes every few hours.
In August the canneries crank around the clock to keep up with the harvest.
UsageUsually cranking, often after really: the team was really cranking.
Similarhum
Note
Behind this verb is a crank turned at full speed, and it now covers anything working flat out: a computer, a band in a club, a rumor mill.
- 3To turn a crank, or to make a machine or part move by turning one.
On cold mornings he had to crank the tractor by hand until it coughed to life.
Two deckhands cranked the winch until the anchor broke the surface.
UsageOften crank an engine by hand.
Note
The verb covers two kinds of engine cranking, and the words around it show which. With by hand, as in "motorists had to crank their engine by hand", a person is turning a real handle. Turn a key first and you are in the key-turning use, where no crank is touched at all.
- 4Short for crankshaft: the main rotating shaft of an engine, which turns the up-and-down motion of the pistons into rotation.
A worn main bearing let the crank wobble, and the whole engine began to knock.
The shop reground the crank and fitted new bearings before rebuilding the motor.
Note
Inside an engine the short form overlaps with the bent arm on a shaft, because a crankshaft can drive a crank, be driven by one, or work as one itself. Context settles which is meant: a crank that wobbles on a worn bearing or goes to the shop to be reground is the whole shaft with its throws.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Crank is a shortened form of crankshaft. en.wiktionary.org
- A crankshaft has throws and can drive, be driven by, or function as a crank. en.wiktionary.org
- Crankshafts can be reconditioned by grinding. ms-motorservice.com
- 5A person with strange or eccentric ideas, especially one who insists on unscientific theories.
Every few months some crank mails the physics department a manuscript disproving relativity.
The comment section filled up with cranks insisting that a magnet in your pocket can cure arthritis.
UsageDismissive: a crank is usually someone whose ideas the speaker thinks are wrong, not just unusual.
- 6Of an engine, to turn over when being started, or to make it turn over by using the starter.
Don't crank the engine for more than a few seconds at a time, or you'll drain the battery.
We piled into the truck, and Earl cranked it up and backed out of the driveway.
UsageOften crank the engine or crank it up. It names the attempt, so an engine can crank without starting.
Similarturn over
Note
Turning a key is enough to crank an engine, and the verb names the attempt, not the result: "I turn the key and crank the engine; yet it doesn't turn over." Whether the motor actually catches is a separate matter.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Cranking means turning the engine over in an attempt to start it. The engine may turn over without starting. en.wiktionary.org
- An engine can crank without catching or starting. fordservicecontent.com
- 7An act of turning a crank, handle, or shaft to operate a mechanism, such as a winch or an engine.
Each crank of the winch pulled the sail a little higher up the mast.
The engine coughed on the first crank and caught on the second.
UsageOften with give and an adjective of effort: give it a good crank.
Note
The handle can be named as well. E. N. Bellass, writing in Modern Railways (November 1964), pictures a Blackpool tram conductor serving each passenger "by a simple crank of a handle".
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- E. N. Bellass wrote the cited passage in Modern Railways in November 1964. en.wiktionary.org
- The passage describes a Blackpool tram conductor serving each passenger using the exact words “by a simple crank of a handle”. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 8A person who is bad-tempered or nasty.
The landlord was a crank who shouted at anyone who parked near his car.
The cranks at the end of the bar complained about the music, the prices, and each other.
UsageA crank can also mean an eccentric, so let the context show which; grouch is clearer.
Similargrouch, grump, crab, curmudgeon
Note
Bad temper, not oddness, is what marks this crank. Because the eccentric goes by the same noun, the surrounding words usually decide which is meant: a nasty old crank who chases the cat away is plainly the ill-tempered kind, while someone called a crank for talking to himself is merely strange.
- 9The drug methamphetamine.
Deputies raided a trailer where two men had been cooking crank.
He stayed up for three days on crank and then crashed hard.
UsageUse cook crank for making the drug and on crank for being under its influence.
Similarmethamphetamine
- 10The penis.
Nobody warned him the hot tub jets would hit him right in the crank.
He finally showed the doctor the rash on his crank, and it turned out to be nothing.
Note
It is slang on the same footing as cock and dick, at home in rough jokes and explicit fiction such as Reggie Chesterfield's Scoundrel (2003), and out of place in formal or medical writing, where penis is the word. With so many innocent meanings around it, crank needs a plainly sexual context to be heard this way; without one, listeners think of a handle or an oddball.
- 11A person who follows baseball as a fan.
Note
Nineteenth-century ballpark talk gave baseball's followers this name, and it has since become archaic.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- 'Crank' was used for a baseball follower in the nineteenth century. gutenberg.org
- 12A person who is sick or infirm; an invalid.
Thou art a counterfeit crank, a cheater.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of MelancholyNote
Invalids once had a noun of their own, the personal partner of the "sick" adjective, and it is now obsolete. Robert Burton, writing as Democritus Junior in The Anatomy of Melancholy, uses it in an insult: "Thou art a counterfeit crank, a cheater," a fake invalid, sick only for show.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Crank formerly meant a sick person or invalid, corresponding to the adjective meaning sick. en.wiktionary.org
- Robert Burton wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy under the pseudonym Democritus Junior. en.wikipedia.org
- The quoted insult appears in Burton's text and accuses its target of feigning infirmity. gutenberg.org
- 13A bend, turn, or winding of any kind, such as one in a passage.
So many turning cranks these have, so many crooks.
1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie QueeneNote
Here the crookedness of the machine's bent arm spreads to paths and passages, a use now archaic. Spenser's Faerie Queene, in the Cantos of Mutabilitie, sets it beside its near twin: "So many turning cranks these have, so many crooks."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Crank has a bend or winding sense associated with the same crookedness as its mechanical sense. en.wiktionary.org
- The Cantos of Mutabilitie belong to Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. msuweb.montclair.edu
- The quoted line occurs in the poem and places cranks beside crooks; the item's spelling is modernized. msuweb.montclair.edu
- 14A twist or turn in speech: wordplay that changes a word's form or meaning.
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
a. 1645, John Milton, “L’Allegro”Note
John Milton's L'Allegro sets this rare meaning among other playful tricks: "Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- John Milton wrote L'Allegro. en.wikipedia.org
- The poem contains the quoted wording among references to playful activities. en.wikisource.org
- 15To run in a winding course, bending, turning, and doubling back.
See how this river comes me cranking in.
c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth,”Similarwind, meander, snake, twist, zigzag
Note
A river gets the verb in William Shakespeare's The First Part of Henry the Fourth (written c. 1597): "See how this river comes me cranking in."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- William Shakespeare wrote The First Part of Henry the Fourth. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
- The play was written around 1597; the item explicitly gives a composition date. rsc.org.uk
- The quoted words occur in the play, spoken by Hotspur about a river. shakespeare.mit.edu
- 16To behave in an irritable, unreasonable way, especially by complaining.
- 17Out of the ordinary in a way that strikes people as strange or weird.
- 18A fit of temper or passion: a sudden outburst of anger or other strong feeling.
Violent of temper; subject to sudden cranks.
1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia - 19Of a ship, prone to capsizing because its cargo is badly stowed or its ballast is insufficient.
- 20A sudden twist or turn of the mind; a whim or passing fancy.
- 21Bent, twisted, or crooked out of its proper shape, or in poor repair.
- 22Full of lively spirit, or so sure of oneself as to be overconfident and opinionated.
If you strong electioners did not think you were among the elect, you would not be so crank about it.
1856, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dred - 23Sick or unwell; not in good health.
- 24Hard to do or deal with; difficult.
- 25An ailment, or an ache somewhere in the body.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
English borrowed the word from krank, a form shared by Dutch and Low German. It goes back to Proto-Germanic *krangaz or *krankaz, which meant "bent" or "weak," by way of Proto-West Germanic *krank. German krank, which means "sick," and Scots crank or krank are related.
Old English had crancstæf, a weaving tool or crank, literally a "bent or crooked staff." Middle English shortened it to crank or cronk. The first element of crancstæf is ultimately related to the other word crank.