Also 5–6 crochette, 5–9 crochet, 6 corchat, crockchette, chrotchet, 7 crachet, 7 (9 dial.) cratchet, 8 crotchett. [ME. a. F. crochet hook, dim. of croche crook, hook: see CROCHET.]
I. = CROCKET.
1. Arch. = CROCKET 2; also transf. to buds or branches.
c. 1394. P. Pl. Crede, 174. Þe mynstre … Wiþ arches … y-corven Wiþ crochetes on corners wiþ knottes of golde.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 767. The crotchets, or projecting stones on the outside of that … spire.
1892. Lichfield Mercury, 25 March, 8/5. Let us gather one of their [elm trees’] delicate sprays…. Every crochet resembles a cluster of spherical beads.
† 2. = CROCKET 1. Obs. (Cf. F. crochet.) In mod. dial. cratchet = the crown of the head.
1589. Pappe w. Hatchet, B iv. They will … anatomize … thy bodie from the corne on thy toe, to the crochet on thy head.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., Cratchet, the crown of the head. ‘Nap his cratchet,’ crack his crown.
1876. Mid-Yorksh. Gloss., Cratchet, the crown of the head.
II. A hook or hooked instrument.
† 3. A small hook, esp. for fastening things; an ornamental hook serving as a brooch or fastening.
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, III. xxiv. (1869), 149. Of this crochet, S.
1481. Caxton, Godfrey, 179. It shold be fasted to the creneaux of the walle, with good and stronge crochettes of yron. Ibid. (1483), Gold. Leg., 134/4. Thenne the tyraunt … with hokes and crochettis of yron dyde do tere theyr flessh.
1503. Priv. Purse Exp. Eliz. of York (1830), 92. For hookes and crochettes … delivered to William Hamerton yeoman of the Warderobe of the beddes.
a. 1618. Sylvester, Du Bartas, Job Triumphant, xli. Canst thou his tongue with steely crotchets thrill.
1690. Evelyn, Mundus Muliebris, 11.
| This to her side she does attach | |
| With Gold Crochet, or French Pennache. |
1703. J. Savage, Lett. Antients, lxxvii. 217. An Imperial Purple Robe on her Shoulders button’d with a Crotchet of Diamonds on her Breast.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 245, ¶ 2. A Crochet of 122 Diamonds, set … in Silver.
4. Surg. † a. A hook-like instrument; b. spec. an instrument employed in obstetrical surgery.
1750. Phil. Trans., XLVII. 83. With a crotchet holding up the integuments [I] keep them from touching.
1754–64. Smellie, Midwif., II. 448. I sat down with a resolution to deliver either with the forceps or crotchet in order to save the woman’s life.
1854. E. Mayhew, Dogs (1862), 213. Forceps … are always dangerous…. The crochet, a blunt hook … is to be preferred.
5. a. A hook used in reaping: see quot. 1833. ǁ b. A hook fastened with straps on the back of a porter for carrying parcels. [= Fr. crochet.]
1833. J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, II. 58. The crotchet or hook; the workman uses it with the left hand to gather the quantity of corn he intends to cut.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxvii. 216. Simond carried my theodolite box, tied upon a crotchet on his back.
6. A natural hook-like organ or process: spec. † a. ‘The tushe, tuske, or fang of a beast’ Cotgr. [F. crochet]. b. One of the minute hooks or claws on the prolegs of many lepidopterous larvæ. c. Anat. The hook-like extremity of the superior occipito-temporal convolution of the brain.
1678. Phillips, s.v., Among Hunters, the chief master Teeth of a Fox, are called Crochets. [Hence 1708 in Kersey and in later Dicts.]
1778. Milne, Dict. Bot., s.v. Semen, Some seeds attach themselves to animals, by means of hooks, crotchets, or hairs.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xii. In the Ostrich, this apparatus of crotchets and fibres, of hooks and teeth is wanting.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1828), III. xxix. The prolegs of almost all Lepidopterous larvæ are furnished with a set of minute slender horny hooks, crotchets, or claws … somewhat resembling fish-hooks.
1876. Quain, Elem. Anat. (ed. 8), II. 532. Its anterior extremity is rounded into a hook called by Vicq-d’Azyr the ‘crotchet,’ hence its name.
III. Derived and figurative senses.
7. Mus. A symbol for a note of half the value of a minim, made in the form of a stem with a round (formerly lozenge-shaped) black head; a note of this value. Also attrib.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 104. Crochett of songe, semiminima.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 116. Sec. Pastor. Say what was his song? hard ye not how he crakyd it, Thre brefes to a long. Tert. Pastor. Yee mary he hakt it, Was no crochett wrong, nor no thing that lakt it.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems (1884), No. 22 iv. The pyet … Fenȝeis to sing the nychtingalis not; Bot scho can nevir the corchat cleif, For harsknes of hir carlich throt.
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 178. He giueth it such a natural grace by breaking a minime into a crotchet rest and a crotchet.
1622. Peacham, Compl. Gentl., xi. (1634), 102. Hee driveth a Crotchet thorow many Minims, causing it to resemble a chaine with the Linkes.
1782. Burney, Hist. Mus. (ed. 2), II. iv. 303. Notes in a lozenge form:… these, whether the heads were full or open, were at first called minims: but when a still quicker note was thought necessary, the white or open notes only had that title and the black were … by the English [called] Crotchets: a name given by the French with more propriety, from the hook or curvature of the tail, to the … Quaver.
1850. W. Irving, Goldsmith, 290. He pretended to score down an air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and semi-breves at random.
b. Often used with playful allusion to sense 9.
1579. Gosson, Apol. Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 68. They [Musitions] haue euer a crotchet aboue commons, and adde where they liste.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, II. iii. 58. Why these are very crotchets that he speaks, Note notes forsooth, and nothing.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 768. Being possess’d with crotchets, as many Musicians are.
† 8. A square bracket in typography; = CROOK 7: formerly also called hook. Obs.
1676. Coles, Crotchetȝ … also (in printing) the mark of a Parenthesis [ ].
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, Wks. 1883, VIII. 456, note. What is between crotchets, thus [ ], Mr. Belford omitted.
1832. Lindley, Introd. Bot., 495. A few interpolations, which are distinguished by being included within crotchets [ ].
9. A whimsical fancy; a perverse conceit; a peculiar notion on some point (usually considered unimportant) held by an individual in opposition to common opinion.
The origin of this sense is obscure: it is nearly synonymous with CRANK sb.2, senses 3 and 4, and might, like it, have the radical notion of ‘mental twist or crook’; but Cotgrave appears to connect it with the musical note, sense 7: ‘Crochue, a Quauer in Musicke; whence Il a des crochues en teste, (we say) his head is full of crochets’: cf. also 7 b.
1573. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 46. M. Osburn stud uppon this chrotchet, that he had bene ons there alreddi, and therefore [etc.].
1587. Harrison, England, II. xxii. (1877), I. 339. All the od crochets in such a builder’s braine.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., III. ii. 135. The Duke had Crockets in him.
1621–51. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. iii. I. ii. 187. That castle in the ayr, that crochet, that whimsie.
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., II. 813. How could so fond a crotchet be devised, That God our serioust actions hath despised?
1711. E. Ward, Quix., I. 37.
| Awaking early in his Bed, | |
| With fifty Crotchets in his Head. |
a. 1772. Wilkie, The Ape, Parrot, etc. (R.). But airy whims and crotchets lead To certain loss, and ne’er succeed.
1807. Crabbe, Par. Reg., III. 930. And gloomy crotchets fill’d his wandering head.
1861. M. Arnold, Pop. Educ. France, 165. Opinions which have no ground in reason … mere crotchets, or mere prejudices.
b. A fanciful device, mechanical, artistic or literary.
1611. L. Barry, Ram Alley, in Hazl., Dodsley, X. 366. As for my breath I have crotchets and devices, ‘Ladies’ rank breaths are often help’d with spices.’
1644. Evelyn, Diary, 8 Nov. He shew’d us his perpetual motions … models, and a thousand other crotchets and devices.
1733. (title) Islington; or the Humours of the New Tunbridge Wells … with Serious and Comical Puns, Crotchets, and Conclusions.
1761. Foote, Liar, I. Wks. 1799, I. 290. All the sighing, dying, crying crotchets, that … rhymers have ever produced.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. ix. Nothing but innuendoes, figurative crotchets.
10. Fortif. A passage formed by an indentation in the glacis opposite a traverse, connecting the portions of the covered way on both sides of the traverse.
1853. Stocqueler, Milit. Encycl.
† 11. Mil. ‘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’ (Webster, 1864). Obs.
† 12. quasi-adv. Oddly. nonce-use.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 20. Its independency or loosness from God, lies as crotchet every whit, as its being.
13. Comb., as crotchet-shaped; crotchet-hero (humorous), a musician; crotchet-monger, one who has crotchets on political and other questions and obtrusively advocates them; hence crotchet-mongering.
1807. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 82. Exhibit loud piano feats Caught from that crotchet-hero, Meetz.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 60. They are mostly crotchet-mongers and puzzle-brains.
1884. Ray Lankester, in Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Oct., 1/2. A corkscrew-shaped or a rod-shaped or a crotchet-shaped bacillus.
1888. Charity Organis. Rev., June, 267. The only way for a philanthropist to escape the reproach of crotchet-mongering is to give up trust in legislative crotchets.
