crabbed

crabbed

English

Etymology

From Middle English crabbed; equivalent to crab +‎ -ed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɹæbd/
• Rhymes: -æbd

Adjective

crabbed (comparative more crabbed, superlative most crabbed)

1. Bad-tempered or cantankerous.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:

     […] O, she is / Ten times more gentle than her father's crabb'd, / And he's composed of harshness.

2. Cramped, bent.
   • c. 1800 Robert Southey, Winter:

     A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee,

     Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey

     As the long moss upon the apple-tree; […]

3. (of handwriting) Crowded together and difficult to read.
4. (aviation, of an aircraft) Pointed at an angle to the runway during approach and landing to compensate for a crosswind.

   Unlike most aircraft, the B-52's fully-steerable landing gear allows it to land crabbed and stay crabbed throughout rollout without destroying its tires.

5. (aviation, of an approach and landing) Performed with one's aircraft pointed at an angle to the runway to compensate for a crosswind; performed with nonzero crab.

   The Ercoupe can't be cross-controlled, so it has to make a crabbed approach in a crosswind rather than using the sideslip technique.

Derived terms

• crabbedly
• crabbedness

Translations

bad-tempered or cantankerous

Bulgarian: раздразнителен (bg) (razdraznitelen), свадлив (bg) (svadliv)

(of handwriting) crowded together and difficult to read

Bulgarian: неразбираем (bg) (nerazbiraem), нечетлив (bg) (nečetliv) Russian: неразбо́рчивый (ru) (nerazbórčivyj)

Verb

crabbed

1. simple past tense and past participle of crab

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Middle English

Alternative forms

• crabbid, crabbyd, crabbede

Etymology

From crabbe +‎ -ed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkrabid/, /ˈkrabɛd/

Adjective

crabbed

1. immoral, backwards, savage, rapacious
2. crabbed, ill-tempered, vengeful
3. (rare) Moving in reverse.

Derived terms

• crabbednes
• crabbidly

Descendants

• English: crabbed
• Scots: crabbit

References

• “crabbed, ppl.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-07.