cranker
Pluralcrankers
Pluralcrankers
- 1A person who operates a crank, turning the handle to work a machine or device.
Early auto crankers learned to grip the handle with the thumb alongside the fingers, never wrapped around it.
On the silent-film set, a steady cranker kept the camera's handle turning at an even pace.
Note
Two words share this spelling, built from different halves of crank: this one is the verb plus the agent suffix, while the comparative of the adjective adds the comparing -er. Hand-starting a car was risky work. The Railway Clerk warned in 1947 that auto crankers sometimes got broken arms, then advised a firm grip, a pull on the choke wire, and a whirl of the crank "like the very devil."
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Origin
Formed from the verb crank and the suffix -er.