[f. CRAB sb.2] A stick or cudgel of the wood of the crab-tree.
1703. Steele, Tend. Husb., I. i. Do you see this Crab-stick, you Dog?
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 26 June. A crab-stick, which was all the weapon he had, brought the fellow to the ground with the first blow.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. III. vi. Brave young Egalité reaches Switzerland … with a strong crabstick in his hand.
b. Application of this in chastisement.
1830. G. P. R. James, Darnley, I. v. 116. I like always to calculate my own quantity of crabstick.
c. fig. A bad-tempered, crabbed person.
1841. Lever, C. O’Malley, I. xxxv. 196. Our colonel, the most cross-grained old crabstick.
1877. E. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss., Crab-stick, a bad-tempered child.
