crank

adj

1. (dialectal)Hard; difficult.
2. (informal)Strange; weird; odd.
3. (dialectal)Bent; twisted; crooked; distorted; out of repair.
4. Sick; unwell.
5. Liable to capsize because of poorly stowed cargo or insufficient ballast.

   “This ship is so crank and walty I fear our grave she will be!”

   “The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank.”

6. Full of spirit; brisk; lively; sprightly; overconfident; opinionated.

   “He who was a little before bedred[…]was now cranke and lustie.”

   “If you strong electioners did not think you were among the elect, you would not be so crank about it.”

noun

1. (dialectal)An ailment, ache.
2. (informal)An ill-tempered or nasty person.

   “Billy-Bob is a nasty old crank! He chased my cat away.”

3. A twist or turn of the mind; caprice; whim;
4. A fit of temper or passion.

   “Violent of temper; subject to sudden cranks.”

5. (British, dated, informal)A person who is considered strange or odd by others, and may behave in unconventional ways.

   “John is a crank because he talks to himself.”

   “Persons whom the Americans since Guiteau’s trial have begun to designate as ‘cranks’—that is to say, persons of disordered mind, in whom the itch of notoriety supplies the lack of any higher ambition.”

   “The raw meat cranks are in dead earnest. They think that raw food is the manna of heaven.”

   “But do you know what isn't in the school books? That old Rossum was mad. Seriously, Miss Glory, you must keep this to yourself. The old crank wanted to actually make people.”

6. (informal)An amateur in science or other technical subjects who persistently advocates flawed theories.

   “That crank next door thinks he’s created cold fusion in his garage.”

7. (archaic, slang)A baseball fan.
8. (obsolete)A sick person; an invalid.

   “Thou art a counterfeit crank, a cheater.”

9. A bent piece of an axle or shaft, or an attached arm perpendicular, or nearly so, to the end of a shaft or wheel, used to impart a rotation to a wheel or other mechanical device; also used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion.

   “I grind my coffee by hand with a coffee grinder with a crank handle.”

10. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping)A bent piece of an axle or shaft, or an attached arm perpendicular, or nearly so, to the end of a shaft or wheel, used to impart a rotation to a wheel or other mechanical device; also used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion.
11. The act of converting power into motion, by turning a crankshaft.

    “Yes, a crank was all it needed to start.”

    “Give it a forceful crank.”

    “By comparison, consider the conductor of a double-decked Blackpool tram on August Monday, who hurries up and down stairs to a hundred or more passengers and serves each one by a simple crank of a handle.”

12. (archaic)Any bend, turn, or winding, as of a passage.

    “So many turning cranks these have, so many crooks.”

13. (US, slang)Synonym of methamphetamine.

    “Danny got abscesses from shooting all that bathtub crank.”

14. (rare)A twist or turn in speech; word play consisting in a change of the form or meaning of a word.

    “Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,”

15. (slang)The penis.

    “It was going to be hard not to blow with a girl like her sucking on his crank.”

verb

1. (transitive)To turn by means of a crank.

   “Motorists had to crank their engine by hand.”

2. (intransitive)To turn a crank.

   “He's been cranking all day and yet it refuses to crank.”

3. (intransitive)To turn.

   “He's been cranking all day and yet it refuses to crank.”

4. (transitive)To cause to spin via other means, as though turned by a crank.

   “I turn the key and crank the engine; yet it doesn't turn over”

   “Crank it up!”

5. (intransitive)To act in a cranky manner; to behave unreasonably and irritably, especially through complaining.

   “Quit cranking about your spilt milk!”

6. (intransitive)To be running at a high level of output or effort.

   “By one hour into the shift, the boys were really cranking.”

   “Better computers use variable speed fans so they run at top speed only when the computer is really cranking”

   “When we were playing at the top of our ability and really cranking, the whole thing could sound like a jet plane taking off in the club.”

   “expected that the NVA and VC were in a position to dish out what they're dishing out, and the rumor mill is really cranking overtime.”

7. (dated, intransitive)To run with a winding course; to double; to crook; to wind and turn.

   “See how this river comes me cranking in.”

name

1. (countable, uncountable)A surname.
2. (countable, uncountable)A small village in Rainford parish, St Helens borough, Merseyside, England (OS grid ref SJ5099).