crab
/kɹæb/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.76 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either."
- "Despite its name, the hermit crab is not a true crab!"
- "She so obviously enjoyed every second of the concert that only the most stubborn crab could not have been warmed by her charm."
- "Although crabs themselves are an easily treated inconvenience, the patient and his partner(s) clearly run major STD risks."
- "The pilot had to hold fifteen degrees of crab during the approach to keep her plane from getting blown off the localizer course."
- "-- "I suppose you wouldn't like to do a locum for a month on the South coast? Three guineas a week with board and lodging." -- "I wouldn't mind," said Philip. -- "It's at Farnley, in Dorsetshire. Doctor South. You'd have to go down at once; his assistant has developed mumps. I believe it's a very pleasant place." There was something in the secretary's manner that puzzled Philip. It was a little doubtful. -- "What's the crab in it?" he asked."
Etymology
From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“to scratch”), a metathesised o-grade of *gerbʰ- (“to carve, scratch”). More at carve. Cognates See also Dutch krab, Low German Krabb, Danish krabbe, Swedish krabba. Further cognates with frequentative-infix are Saterland Frisian krabbelje (“to creep, crawl”), Dutch krabbelen (“to scratch”) and German krabbeln (“to crawl”). Possibly related to English creep and Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”) etc. Other origins have also been suggested, see Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos) (regarding the possibility of a substrate origin) and Persian خرچنگ (regarding possible ideophonic origin); compare also Old Armenian քարբ (kʻarb), German Krebs.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kɹæb/
- British English: /kɹæb/