I. [from CRANK sb.2 1, 2.]
† 1. intr. To twist and turn about; to move with a sharply winding course, to zigzag. Obs.
Shakespeare’s phr. to come cranking in is humorously echoed in the later quots. without regard to its strict sense.
1592. Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 682. The purblind hare … He crankes and crosses with a thousand doubles. Ibid. (1596), 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 98. See, how this Riuer comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my Land, A huge halfe Moone, a monstrous Cantle out.
1830. Miss Mitford, Village, 4th ser. (1863), 309. Here and there, too, farm-houses and cottages, half hidden by cherry orchards … come cranking into the meadows.
1891. Sat. Rev., 12 Dec., 664/1. Here is Professor Finn Magnusen comes me cranking in, pronounces Repp a reprobate, and gives a totally different rendering to the Runes.
† 2. trans. To wrinkle minutely with parallel ridges and furrows, to crinkle. Also to crank in.
1661. J. Childrey, Brit. Baconica, 75. They were streaked and cranked like a Cockle-shell. Ibid., 76. Other little stones … that were cranked in like a Cockle-shell, but deeper, and not so thick together. Ibid., 78. There is an apparent difference between the Musclestone, and the true Muscle of the Sea, both in the shape … and in the cranking of it.
3. dial. (See quots.)
1847–78. Halliwell, Crank … (4) to mark crossways on bread-and-butter to please a child. Kent.
1887. Kentish Gloss., Crank, to mark cross-wise.
II. [f. CRANK sb.1]
4. trans. a. To bend in the shape of a crank, i.e., with two (or four) right angles; to make crank-shaped. (Also, to crank down.) b. To attach a crank to, furnish with a crank.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 197. Each end was also cranked about an inch, so as to set the transverse part of the bars, clear of the copper sash frame.
1834. N. W. Cundy, Inland Transit, 56. The axle of the greater wheels is cranked.
1842. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., III. II. 349. An excellent specimen of the low-chested cart, obtained by cranking down the axles.
1884. F. J. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 138. Tools are often cranked … without any idea of the object to be gained.
5. To fasten with a crank: see CRANK sb.1 3.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 175/1. The edge-plate … should run from one extremity to the other, commencing at the hind bottom bar, on to which it should be cranked.
6. Sc. To shackle (a horse).
1822. Hogg, Perils of Man, I. 267 (Jam.). As for the reward of presumption, it is in Scotland to be crankit before and kicked behind.
7. To lift or draw up by means of a crank.
1883. Lathrop, in Harper’s Mag., Aug., 332/1. He … cranks his prey up [a steep incline] at the rate of 2000 people a day.
