Crook | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Crook, n.

noun

(27), n. [Icel. krōkr, Sw. krok, Dan. krog, O. D. krooke, hook, bend, or curve. Cf. CROCHES.] 1. A bend, turn, or curve; curvature; flexure. Those sapphire-colored brooks, Which, conduit-like, with curious crooks, Sweet islands make. Sidney. 2. A device used as a subterfuge; an indirect method; a trick or artifice. They will have it by hook or by crook. Mede. 3. An instrument bent at the end; especially, a shepherd’s staff or a bishop’s staff of office;—called also crosier. He left his crook, he left his flocks. Prior.

A gibbet. [Obs.] “Forthwith led unto the crook.” Spencer.
(Mus.) A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, &c., to change its pitch or key.

Crōōk, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [imp. & p. p.] CROOKED (krōōkt); p. pr. & vb. n. CROOKING. [Icel. kroka, Sw. krōka, Dan. krōge. See supra.]

Sense 1. To make into a crook; to turn from a straight line; to bend; to curve.

There is but little labor of the muscles required, only enough for bowing or crooking the tail. Derham.

Sense 2. To turn from rectitude; to pervert.

Whatsoever affairs pass such a man’s hands, he crooketh them to his own ends, which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Bacon.

Sense 3. To thwart. [Rare.]

Crook, v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. To be bent or curved; to deviate from a right line; to turn by a crook.

Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards. (Camden.)