a. Forms: 3–6 croked, 4–6 -id, -yd, (4 kr-), 5 cruked, (crowkyt), 6 Sc. crukit, 7 (Shaks.) crook’d, 4– crooked. [Partly pa. pple. of CROOK v., partly f. CROOK sb. + -ED, as in hunched, etc.: the formation from the sb. may even have been the earlier.]
1. Bent from the straight form; having (one or more) bends or angles; curved, bent, twisted, tortuous, wry. Applied to everything that is not ‘straight’ (of which crooked is now the ordinary opposite).
a. 1225. Ancr. R. (MS. Cleop.). Þe cat of helle … wið crokede crokes.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. xxvii. 1. Leuyathan a crookid wounde serpent.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. III. 29. Shal neuere … on croked kene þorne kynde fygys wexe.
a. 1450. Knt. de la Tour, 23. Al her lyff after she hadd her nose al croked.
c. 1460. Medulla Gram. (in Promp. Parv., 80), Cambuca, a buschoppys cros or a crokid staf.
1534. Tindale, Luke iii. 5. Crocked thinges shalbe made streight.
1551. Recorde, Pathw. Knowl., I. All other lines, that go not right forth from prick to prick, but boweth any waye such are called Croked lynes.
1591. Lyly, Sappho, II. i. Juniper, the longer it grew, the crookeder it wexed.
1607. Shaks., Cor., II. i. 62. If the drinke … touch my Palat aduersly, I make a crooked face at it.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., II. xvi. 111. Shipwrights and boat makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber.
1717. Berkeley, Tour in Italy, § 27. Streets open … but crooked.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xxiii. That falchion’s crooked blade.
2. Of persons: Having the body or limbs bent out of shape; deformed; bent or bowed with age. Hence transf. as an epithet of age.
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 34/18. He … maude hole … Meseles and þe crokede.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XI. 186. Ac calleth þe careful þer-to þe croked and þe þore.
1430. Lydg., Chron. Troy, IV. xxx. In my croked age.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, xxiii. 68. The crokyd dwarfe.
1628. Milton, Vacation Exerc., 69. A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age.
1718. Freethinker, No. 92. 258. You would have thought she had been crooked from her Infancy.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., II. xv. A pert crooked little chit.
† b. of an old decrepit horse. Obs.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, X. lxxxiv. Whan that knyghte sawe sire palomydes bounden vpon a croked courser.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), Q. There is not so croked a hors, but yf he see a mare, he wille braie ones or twise.
3. fig. The reverse of ‘straight’ in figurative senses (esp. with reference to moral character and conduct); deviating from rectitude or uprightness; not straightforward; dishonest, wrong, perverse; perverted, out of order, awry.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 102. Þe cat of helle … mid clokes of crokede & of kene uondunges.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xxxi. 14. Krokid of hert ere þa.
1508. Fisher, Wks. (1876), I. 240. The wyll of some is so croked.
1591. Shaks., Two Gent., IV. i. 22. If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
1611. Bible, Deut. xxxii. 5. They are a peruerse and crooked generation.
1660. H. More, Myst. Godliness, V. xvii. 204. A very crooked Objection both from the Jew and Atheist.
1711. Pope, Temp. Fame, 411. Of crooked counsels and dark politicks.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, VII. xv. This young gentleman, though somewhat crooked in his morals, was perfectly straight in his person.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 245. Perfect in the practice of crooked ways.
b. colloq. Dishonestly come by; made, obtained or sold in a way that is not straightforward. (U.S. and Australia.)
1876. N. Amer. Rev., CXXIII. 301. Another house testified … that half its entire annual product was ‘crooked.’
1891. Farmer, Dict. Amer., Crooked whiskey, illicitly distilled whiskey upon which no excise has been paid.
1892. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Nevermore, I. x. 180. He was riding a crooked horse when he was took.
4. quasi-adv. In a crooked course or position; not straight.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph. (R.). If the younge tree growe croked.
1549. Compl. Scot., xix. 159. Sche ȝeid crukit, bakuart, and on syd.
1864. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., III. 220. Pictures … which were hung up all crooked.
5. Comb., as crooked-bill, a name for the AVOCET; crooked-rig (rig = back), crook-back; b. parasynthetic, as crooked-backed, -clawed, -eyed, -houghed, -legged, -lined, -lipped, -pated, -shouldered, etc., adjs.
1382. Wyclif, Lev. xxi. 20. If crokid rigge or bleer eyed.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, xxi. 63. He is … crokyd shulderyd.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. ii. 86. A crooked-pated olde … Ramme.
1691. Lond. Gaz., No. 2691/4. A dark brown-bay Mare … crooked Legg’d behind.
1705. trans. Bosman’s Guinea, 264. Crooked-bills and several sorts of Snipes.
1853. Hickie, trans. Aristoph. (1887), I. 321. These here crooked-clawed birds.
1865. Trollope, Belton Est., xiii. 142. Small and crooked-backed.
