Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word crab. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word crab, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say crab in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word crab you have here. The definition of the word crab will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofcrab, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.
-- "I suppose you wouldn't like to do a locum for a month on the South coast? Three guineas a week with board and lodging." -- "I wouldn't mind," said Philip. -- "It's at Farnley, in Dorsetshire. Doctor South. You'd have to go down at once; his assistant has developed mumps. I believe it's a very pleasant place." There was something in the secretary's manner that puzzled Philip. It was a little doubtful. -- "What's the crab in it?" he asked.
Arrested by the low price of another “desirable residence”, I asked “What's the crab?” The agent assured me that there was no crab. I fell in love with this house at sight. Happily, I discovered that it was reputed to be haunted.
1844, Albert Henry Payne, Payne's universum, or pictorial world, page 99:
[…] the unsold copies may be returned to the original publisher , at a period fixed upon between Christmas and Easter; these returned copies are technically called krebse or crabs, probably, from their walking backwards. […] A says to B, "I have had eight thousand dollars' worth of your publications, three thousand were crabs, that makes five thousand."
1892, The Publishers Weekly, volume 41, page 709:
[…] unsold copies and settling the yearly accounts; while for the publisher begins the much dreaded season of "crabs," as […]
1916, Ring W. Lardner, “Three Kings and a Pair”, in The Saturday Evening Post:
I thought at the time that that little speech meant a savin' of eight dollars,[…] But the Missus crabbed it a few minutes after her and Bess come in the room.
1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 224:
‘Just so we understand each other,’ he said after a pause. ‘If you crab this case, you'll be in a jam.’
2000, Dana Stabenow, Midnight Come Again, →ISBN, page 251:
Mutt stalked forward, matching him, step for step, crabbing sideways the way wolves do when they're going for the kill.
2007, Pat DePaolo, The Beijing Games, →ISBN, page 454:
The aircraft crabbed sideways in the cross-winds and leveled to horizontal.
2015, Andrew Swanston, Waterloo: The Bravest Man, →ISBN:
Another shouted order and again the squares crabbed sideways.
To move in a manner that involves keeping low and clinging to surfaces.
2011, Robert Vivian, The Least Cricket of Evening, page 108:
Time slowed down then, became liquid in the aftermath of his grotesque, unfolding limbs; he crabbed his way down the faded line, rocking back and forth in braces he would use all his life.
2019, Ronan Frost, White Peak:
Foot by foot, he crabbed his way down another ninety feet of rock chimney until he stood on solid ground again, still very much alive.
1997, Paul Kriwaczek, Documentary for the Small Screen, page 109:
If panning is not easy to make seem natural, crabbing the camera is even less like any action we perform with our eyes in the real world. There are a few circumstances in which we walk sideways: […]
(obsolete,World War I), to fly slightly off the straight-line course towards an enemy aircraft, as the machine guns on early aircraft did not allow firing through the propeller disk.
“Nothing can possibly go wrong.” “Just as you say, sir. But I still have that feeling.” The blood of the Woosters is hot, and I was about to tell him in set terms what I thought of his bally feeling, when I suddenly spotted what it was that was making him crab the act.
I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;
1895, Robert Blatchford, “The New Party in the North”, in Andrew Reid, editor, The New Party Described by Some of its Members, London: Hodder Brothers, page 24:
Just as by cultivation the acrid wild crab has been developed into the beautiful and luscious apple, may the unripe, ill-fed, neglected wild fruits of the fields and slums be developed into pure and noble and beautiful men and women.
The tree bearing crab apples, which has a dogbane-like bitter bark with medical use.
She swore to such things , that I could do nothing but swear and call names : upon which out bolts her husband upon me , with a fine taper crab in his hand and fell upon me with such violence , that , being half delirious , I made a full confession
A movable winch or windlass with powerful gearing, used with derricks, etc.
A form of windlass, or geared capstan, for hauling ships into dock, etc.
Get you to bed, drab, courage Or l'll so crab your shoulders!
1935, Jack Molyneux, John Fairfax-Blakeborough, Thirty Years a Hunt Servant: Being the Memories of Jack Molyneux, page 161:
I was on a horse named The Skipper, a perfect terror to ride when he was in a bad humour, which he invariably was; nevertheless he was a splendid hunter and I never crabbed him.
2021, H. De Vere Stacpoole, Vanderdecken:
The Shiremans had a down on him over stores he'd condemned as not fit for dogs, let alone able seamen, and they'd got wind he was a socialist, and they crabbed him all over the shipping companies' offices.
Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of the English Language. International Edition. combined with Britannica World Language Dictionary. Chicago-London etc., Encyclopaedia Britannica, inc., 1965.