[A comparatively modern formation, covering a group of senses that hang but loosely together, and have various associations with CRANK sb.2 and 3, CRANK a.2 and 3.]
(The order here followed is merely provisional.)
1. Sickly, in weak health, infirm in body; = CRANK a.3 3. dial.
1787. Grose, Prov. Gloss., Cranky, ailing, sickly; from the dutch crank, sick. N[orth].
1869. Lonsdale Gloss., Cranky, ailing, sickly. [So in dial. Glossaries of Cumberland, Whitby, Holderness, Leicestersh., Berkshire; W. Somerset has crankety; in others prob. omitted as being a general word.]
1891. Science (N. Y.), 21 Aug., 102/2. The vigorous sheep being constantly drafted away for sale … these ‘cranky’ sheep (as they came to be called) were left behind.
2. Naut. = CRANK a.2
1861. Wynter, Soc. Bees, 358. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but the boat is very cranky … if you goes on so, she will be over.’
1870. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 126. The craft is cranky.
3. Out of order, out of gear, working badly; shaky, crazy; = CRANK a.3 4.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, III. 90. it was constantly getting out of order … at length it became so cranky that the horses were usually sent out after it to bring it along.
1863. Mrs. Toogood, Yorksh. Dial., ‘Don’t sit on that chair, it is cranky.’
1888. Berkshire Gloss., Cranky … for machinery, out of gear; for a structure, in bad repair, likely to give way.
4. Of capricious or wayward temper, difficult to please; cross-tempered, awkward; ‘cross.’
1821. Blackw. Mag., IX. 82. There cranky Newport, not annoyed with νους.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, vii. That his friend appeared to be rather ‘cranky’ in point of temper.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xv. 151. He got plaguy cranky of late; wouldn’t come down with the money nohow.
1876. Miss Yonge, Womankind, xxiii. 199. As long as we view our maids as cranky self-willed machines for getting our work done, we and they shall be one perpetual plague to each other. [In dial. Glossaries of Cumberland, Whitby, Holderness, Leicester.]
5. Mentally out of gear; crotchety, ‘queer’; subject to whims or ‘cranks’; eccentric or peculiar in notions or behavior. Cf. CRANK sb.2 4, 5.
1850. Dickens, Poor Man’s Tale of Patent (Househ. Wds., 19 Oct., 70). I said, ‘William Butcher…. You are sometimes cranky.’
1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, II. 113. He [a mad-doctor] had … almost invariably found the patient had been cranky for years.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v., Cranky ways, crotchets.
1879. G. Macdonald, P. Faber, II. iv. 66. A cranky, visionary, talkative man.
1884. Boston (Mass.) Jrnl., July, 11. Butler makes a long fight over his cranky notions.
6. Full of twists or windings, crooked; full of corners or crannies. Cf. CRANK sb.2, 1, 2.
1836. W. S. Landor, Wks., 1876, VIII. 94. No curling dell, no cranky nook.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v., Cranky roads, crooked roads.
1887. Jessopp, Arcady, iii. 71. There there are no old closets, dim passages, and cranky holes and corners.
7. (See quot.) dial. Cf. CRANK v.1 2.
1788. W. H. Marshall, Yorksh. Gloss., Cranky, checked [i.e., striped] linen; cranky apron, a checked-linen apron.
1876. Whitby Gloss., Cranky adj., of stout old-fashioned linen for housewives’ aprons, with a blue stripe on a white ground.
