crotchet
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Two crotchets and a crotchet rest
English
Etymology
From Middle English crochet, from Old French crochet (“small hook”), from croc + -et (diminutive suffix), from Old Norse krókr (“hook”). The musical note was named so because of a small hook on its stem in black notation (in modern notation this hook is on the quaver/eighth note). Doublet of crochet, crocket, and croquet.
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkɹɑt͡ʃ.ɪt/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɹɒtʃ.ɪt/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Rhymes: -ɒtʃɪt
Noun
crotchet (plural crotchets)
- (music) A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.
- Synonym: (US) quarter note
- 1920 August 27, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Wind Blows”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, pages 140–141:
- The crotchets and quavers are dancing up and down the stave like little black boys on a fence.
- (obsolete) A sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook
- (surgery, now chiefly historical) A hook-shaped instrument, especially as used in obstetric surgery.
- 1797 September 1, Hester Lynch Piozzi, Thraliana:
- Either Doctor Denman or an old Woman would have waited—but since the horrid death-doing Crotchet has been found out, & its use permitted—Oh! many & many a Life has been flung away.
- (archaic) A whim or a fancy.
- 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Democracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page 124:
- Thou who walkest in a vain shew, looking out with ornamental dilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life and all Death; and amblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk into crotchets, thy poor conduct into fatuous somnambulisms; [...] dost thou call that "liberty!"
- 1847, Thomas De Quincey, “Secret Societies”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine:
- He ruined himself and all that trusted in him by crotchets that he could never explain to any rational man.
- A forked support; a crotch.
- 1717, John Dryden, “Book VIII. [The Story of Baucis and Philemon.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC, page 287:
- Their little Shed, ſcarce large enough for Two, / Seems, from the Ground increas'd, in Height and Bulk to grow. / A ſtately Temple ſhoots within the Skies, / The Crotchets of their Cot in Columns riſe: [...]
- (military, historical) An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.
- (military) The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.
- (printing) A square bracket.
Derived terms
Translations
musical note
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Verb
crotchet (third-person singular simple present crotchets, present participle crotcheting, simple past and past participle crotcheted)
- (obsolete) to play music in measured time
- a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “(please specify the title)”, in Poems, with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: M F for Iohn Marriot, , published 1633, →OCLC:
- The nimblest crotcheting musician
- Archaic form of crochet (knit by looping)
Norman
Etymology
From Old French crochet (“small hook”), from croc (with diminutive suffix -et), from Old Norse krókr (“hook”).
Noun
crotchet m (plural crotchets)
Derived terms
- crotchet cârré (“square bracket”)