Ricketty, weak, shaky. Sc. 1802; also used by Carlyle (1831) of machinery. N.E.D.
1833. Nor should I wonder at serious accidents often occurring with those crank conveyances among the precipices and ravines of the mountains.—C. F. Hoffman, ‘A Winter in the Far West,’ i. 45 (Lond., 1835).
1852. ‘We all sank together,’ said he, ‘and I came up alone. There are my wife and child,’ he said, pointing to them; and he spoke with such a crank voice and stony face as would have made us shudder, had he not added, on seeing the moistened eye of my companion, ‘I can’t cry yet, you see.’—Knick. Mag., xl. 158 (Aug.).
