crook

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime
  2. noun a circular segment of a curve
  3. noun a long staff with one end being hook shaped

Etymology

From Middle English croke, crok, from Old English *crōc (“hook, bend, crook”), from Proto-West Germanic *krōk, from Proto-Germanic *krōkaz (“bend, hook”), from Proto-Indo-European *greg- (“tracery, basket, bend”). Cognate with Dutch kreuk (“a bend, fold, wrinkle”), Middle Low German kroke, krake (“fold, wrinkle”), Danish krog (“crook, hook”), Swedish krok (“crook, hook”), Icelandic krókur (“hook”). Compare typologically Czech křivák (< křivý < Proto-Slavic *krivъ, whence also *krivьda).

In classic literature

Synonyms

criminal, felon, outlaw, malefactor

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