crab 
as absorbents, Crab's eyes, iu materia medica, concre- 
tions formed in the stomach of the crawfish, formerly in 
much repute in a powdered state as antacids. To catch 
a crab, (a) To miss a stroke iu rowing and fall backward. 
- 
1324 
How charming is divine philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose ; 
cracche 
from the nuts of Carapa Guianensis. See Ca- 
, 
(b) Among professional oarsmen, to sink the oar-blade so 
deeply in the water that it cannot be lifted easily, and 
hence tends to throw the rower out of the boat. 
crab 1 (krab), v. i. ; pret. and pp. crabbed, ppr. 
crabbing. [< crab 1 , n. Cf. MLG. freq. krabbeln, 
creep about.] 1. To fish for or catch crabs: 
But musical as is Apollo's In*^^ Comus } m crab-pot (krab'pot), . A device for catching 
To be lord of a manor is to be the lord of' a secular 'ruin', *, consisting of a frame of wickerwork open 
in which he that knows the secret of the crabbed spell- at me top. 
book may call up the ghosts of a vanished order of the OrabrO (kra bro), n. [alM,\ Li. craoro, a Hornet : 
world. F. Pollock, Laud Laws, p. p. see hornet.] The typical genus of the family 
4. Very intricate or irregular; difficult to de- Crdbronidte, containing large black-and-yellow 
cipher or understand : as, crabbed handwriting; species, as C. cephalotes. A characteristic American 
crabbed characters. torm is c - sexmaculatus, with six yellow spots on the 
a crabln crawling backward ; back out; "craw- 
fish": as, he tried to craft out of it. [Colloq., 
U. S.] 
crab 2 (krab), n. [< ME. crabbe, < Sw. (in comp.) 
krabb-ciple, a crab-apple; perhaps < krabba, a crabbedly (krab'ed-li), adv. Peevishly ; morose- 
crab (crustacean), in allusion to the astringent ly ; perversely ; with asperity ; with perplexity, 
juice. Cf. craftfted.] 1. A small, tart, and so crabbedlie tumbled them both together. 
somewhat astringent apple, of which there are Holinshed, Chrou., Ireland, i. 
several varieties, cultivated chiefly for orna- crabbedness (krab'ed-nes), n. [< ME. crabbed- 
as, to go crabbing. 2. Figuratively, to act like crabbed characters, 
a ,,i'.iK in ipawliiia' Viaplrwn.rd ' Vifl.clc out : "craw- 
The document in question had a sinister look, it is true ; 
it was crabbed in text, and from a broad red ribbon dan- 
gled the great seal of the province. 
Irving, Knickerbocker, p. 215. 
ment and to be made into preserves, jelly, etc. 
the crab-apple. 
She's as like this as a craft's like an apple. 
Shak., Lear, i. 5. 
Go home, ye knaves, and lay crabbes in the fyre. 
Playe of Robyn Hade (Child's Ballads, V. 425). 
nesse; < crabbed + -ness.] 1. Perversity; peev- 
ishness ; asperity ; moroseness ; bitterness ; 
sourness ; harshness of temper or character. 
These misfortunes . . . "increased the natural crabbed- 
ness of his wife's temper." Everett, Orations, II. 131. 
2. Difficulty; perplexity; unintelligibility. 
The mathematics with their crabbedness. 
Howell, Letters, I. i. 9. 
One who catches crabs ; 
Crabro inlemtfita. ( Line shows natural size. ) 
2. The tree producing the fruit. The wild species 
of northern Europe is the original of the common apple, 
Pyrus Malus. Of the cultivated crabs, the Siberian crab 
(/. pruntfolia), the Chinese crab (P. ipectabilis), and the Crabber (krab er), n. 
cherry-crab (P. baccata) are all natives of northern Asia, a crab-catcher. _. ., __.. 
Several species of Pyrus in the United States are also crabbery (krab'e-ri), .; pi. crabberies (-riz). [< eastern United States. 
known as crab-apples, but are of no value. See -.apple ^1 &1 +* -j "A resort or breeding-place of crab-roller (krab 'roller), n. Imprinting, 
3. A walking-stick or club made of the wood small rollerwhich distributes printing-ink on 
of the crab-apple ; a crabstick. 
The wide expanse of water is choked up by numerous 
Out bolts her husband upon me with a flue taper crab g rea t mud-banks, which the inhabitants call Cangrejales, 
in his hand. Garrick, Lying Valet, i. 2. or crabberies, from the number of small crabs. 
crab 3 (krab), v. ; pret. and pp. craftfted, ppr. crab- 
bing. 
subpedunculate abdomen. The name of the genus is also 
the specific name of the common hornet, Vespa crabro, 
of a different family. C. interrupta is a common North 
American species, extending from Canada all through the 
a 
the ink-cylinder of the Adams printing-press : 
so called because its motion is sidewise and 
apparently diagonal. Also known as the dc- 
tor or doctor. 
IVlttUJ, U. , UldL. UUVl Ml>. ^' l*ft/l, M^> *" *" - , . r _ r , . . .. WVt vi tlwwl. 
' [E. dial, also croft, q. v. ;< ME. "crabben, crabbing 1 (krab'mg), w. [Verbal n. of craft 1 , Orabronidae (kra-bron'i-de), . pi. [NL., < 
found only in pp. adj. crabbed, q. v. ; prob. = ('.] The act or art of fishing for crabs. 
MD. D. fcroftftett = MLG. LG. krabben, scratch, crabbing 2 (krab'mg), n. [< crab* + -i"!/ 1 .] The 
scrape, = Icel. krabba, scrawl (freq. MD. krab- operation of removing completely all dirt and 
belen, scratch, scrawl, D. krabbelen, scrawl, = grease from stuffs by soap and alkalis before 
MLG. krabbeln, crawl about) ; in a secondary they are subjected to dyeing. It is usually pev- 
nlsn MT> Ifrihhfn sprfltph D kribben 
also ML>. Knooen, scratcn, L>. Knooen, 
formed by passing the fabrics through vats containing de- 
t nt liquilU and then squeezing them between rollers. 
Crabro(n-) + -idai.] A family of fossorial acu- 
leate hymenopterous insects, related to the 
Vespida, or wasps and hornets, and having short 
antennse and a large truncate head. The species 
burrow in the ground, in decayed wood, etc., and the sting 
of some of them is very painful. The genera are about 20 
in number, and the species are very numerous. They are 
MLG. kribbisch = G. kreppisch, peevish, cross, 
crabbed. In E. the word, most familiar in the 
bed; disagreeable. 
Persius is crabby, because auntient. Crabs'-eyeS (krabz'iz), n. pi. A name for the 
Marston, Scourge of Villany, Prol. seeds of Abrus precatonus. 
form craftfted, has long been associated with catcher (krab'kach'er) n 1 One who or crabsidle (krab'ul'dl), v. i. ; pret. and pp. craft- 
r^nTrll^ ,^d,ppr.craft,^. [< craft 1 + sidle.] ' 
provoke; make peevish, cross, sour, or bitter. 
To 
_ birds: in Jamaica, the small green heron, move sidewise, like a crab. 
Butorides virescens; in South America, the boat- Others cmbsidlmg along. Southey, Letters (1800), 1. 105. 
billed heron, Cancroma cochlearia. See Can- crab-spider (krab'spi'der), n. 1. Alaterigrade 
Whowbeit he was verie hat [hot] in all questiones, yit eroma _ spider, as one of the family Thomisidte: so 
when it t^^j^god^Mmuoo^^^ crab ^ ater (krab 'e"ter), ,.. 1. The least bittern called from its habit of moving sidewise.- 2. 
of Europe, Ardetta minuta. 2. The cobia or A scorpion. 
sergeant-fish, Elacate Canada. Dr. S. L. Mitchill. crabstick (krab'stik), n. [< craft 2 + stick.] A 
Also called cubby-yew. walking-stick or club made of the wood of the 
crabert, The aquatic vole or water-rat of 
Europe, Arvicola amphibia. I. Walton. 
as a person or his disposition ; make crabbed. 
"I'is easier to observe how age or sicknesse sowers and 
crabbes our nature. Glanoille, Pre-existence of Souls, iv. 
2. To break or bruise. [Prov. Eng.] 
II. intrans. 1. To be peevish or cross. 2. 
In falconry, to seize each other when fighting: crab-facedt (krab'fast), a. Having a sour, dis- 
said of hawks. Encyc. Brit., IX. 7. 
crab 3 (krab), n. [< craft 3 , a. ; with allusion to 
craft 2 , n. 
morose person. 
crab 3 t (krab), a. 
crab-tree ; hence, such a stick of any wood. 
Adams, brandishing }ii& crabstick, said he despised death 
as much as any man. Fieldiny, Joseph Andrews. 
agreeable look: as, "a crab-faced mistress," crabstock (krab'stok), n. A wild apple-tree 
Beaumont. used as a stock to graft upon, 
crab-farming (krab'far'ming), n. A system of ^ Wm tell wh a {t takj nourtehment from a 
protecting or preserving crabs by keeping them 
in pens in salt-water shallows, where they are 
fattened for market. 
crab-grass (krab'gras), . 1. An annual grass, 
Panicum sanguinale, common in cultivated and 
waste grounds. It affords good pasture and hay, 
but, from its rapid growth, is a noxious weed in culti- 
Better gleanings their worn soil can boast 
Than the crab vintage of the neighb'ring coast. 
Dryden. 
crab-apple (krab'ap'l), . [< ME. crabbe ap- chenopodiaceous plant, growing upon the sea- 
pulle (= Sw. krabbfiple) ; as craft 2 + apple.] shore and supposed to be eaten by crabs. 
Same as craft 2 . crabite (kraVit), n. [< craft 1 + -tie 2 .] A name 
crabbet, An obsolete form of craft 1 , craft 2 . sometimes given to a fossil crab or crawfish. 
crabbed (krab'ed), a. [< ME. crabbed, crab- crab-lobster (krab'lob"ster), . Ananomurous 
bid; associated with the verb craft 3 , q. v.] 1. crustacean of the genus 
Sour or harsh to the taste .2. Perverse ; cross ; Porcellana. 
peevish; morose; springing from a sour tern- crab-louse (krab'lous) 
Johnson. 
[Partly < crafts, ^ and craft- 
fted, partly < craft 2 , n.] Sour; rough; harsh to 
the taste. 
She speakes as sharply, and lookes as sowerly, as if she 
had beene new squeased out of a crab orenge. 
Marston, The Fawne, iii. 
Let him tell why a graft, ( 
crabstock, shall have a fruit more noble than its nurse and 
parent. Jer. Taylor, Works (ed. 1835), I. 435. 
crabstone (krab'stpn), n. A chalky mass or 
calcareous concretion developed on either side 
of the stomach of crustaceans, as the decapods, 
previous to the casting of the shell, and sup- 
- . posed to be a deposit stored up for the calcifi- 
vated fields. Some other species of Panicmn, as also the I J "=. CU "" "J 
Kleusine Indica, are known by the same name. cation of the new shell. 
2. The Salicornia herbacea, a low, succulent, crab-tree (krab'tre), . and a. [< ME. craft-ire; 
< craft 2 + tree.] I. . The tree which bears 
crabs, or crab-apples. 
We have some old crab-trees here at home that will not 
Be grafted to your relish. Shak., COT., ii. 1. 
II. a. Made of the wood of the crab. The 
wood is used principally by millwrights for the 
teeth of wheels. 
per or character: as, a crabbed man. 
I toke ful gode hede 
How thow contraryedest Clergye with crabbed wordes. 
Piers Plowman (B), xii. 157. 
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together. 
Shak., Pass. Pilgrim, xii. 
Lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks, 
Pore owre the devil's pictur'd 1 
3. Difficult; perplexing; 
crabbed author or subject. 
:l beuks [cards]. 
Burnt, The Twa Dogs. 
uninviting : as, a 
H. A kind of louse, Pedi- 
cnlus or Phthirius pubis 
or inguinalis, found at 
times in the hair of the 
pubis and perinseum, 
and sometimes on other 
portions of the body, 
clinging with great te- 
nacity, and difficult to 
Whate'er the crabbed'et author hath, 
He understood b' implicit faith. 
S. Butler, Hudibras, I. i. 129. 
The tinker had a crab-tree, staff, 
Which was both good and strong. 
Rolrin Hood and the Tinker (Child's Ballads, V. 233). 
crab-winch (krab'winch), ii. Same as craft 1 , 
7 (e). 
crab-wood (krab'wud), n. [Appar. < craft 2 + 
wood 1 , but prop, an accom. of carap-wood.] 
The wood of Carapa Guianensis. See Carapa. 
/>>. crab-yaws (krab'yaz),.^. The name applied 
, to the tumors of frainboesia (yaws) when they 
eradicate : so called from its shape and gener- appear on the soles of the feet and palms of the 
al appearance. It is destroyed by mercurial hands. In these places the thicker epidermis 
ointment. forms hard, callous lips, and the tumors are 
crab-oil (krab'oil), H. [Appar. < craft 2 + oil, but painful, 
prop, an accom. of carap-oil.] An oil extracted cracchet, >' ' A Middle English form of cratch 1 . 
Crab-louse (/-* 
