Obs. Forms: 1 crúc, 2–3 cruche, 4–5 crouche, crowch(e. [Early ME. cruche, app.:—OE. crúc, ad. L. crux, crucis cross.
OE. crúc is known to occur once c. 1000 in sense ‘sign of the cross’: its history presents some difficulties. The palatalization of the final é (whence 12th c. crūche) suggests that it was a word of early adoption which had undergone the usual phonetic change, as in circe, church. But in this case the vowel would have remained short, as in pic, pitch, and examples would surely have occurred. The probability is that it is a late learned adaptation of L. cruci-, as pronounced by Italians or other Romanic people with c as tch, and lengthened ū: cf. It. croce. See Pogatscher § 160 (1888). Cf. also OS. crûci, OHG. crûci, crûzi, mod.G. kreuz, and their allied forms, where we have the long ū, and c repr. by ts as in OF. cruiz. (Some have thought ME. cruche to be of Fr. dial. origin: cf. Bearnese croutz cross).]
= CROSS, in its various early senses: the holy cross, or a representation or figure of it; the sign of the cross; a heraldic cross; the cross on a coin, a coin marked with a cross.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 288. Þonne nime he his [petra oleum] dæl, and wyrce cristes mæl on ælcre lime butan cruc on þæm heafde foran se sceal on balzame beon.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 95. Crepe to cruche on lange fridai.
a. 1225. Leg. Kath., 1171. Ne mahte … his heuenliche cunde … felen … sorhe vpo þe cruche.
c. 1315. Shoreham, 15. Ine the foreheved the crouche a-set Felthe of fendes to bermi.
1340. Ayenb., 41. The halȝede þinges, þe crouchen [Fr. les croiz], þe calices.
1389. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 54. In exaltacion of ye holy crouche.
1393. Gower, Conf., I. 172. Whose tunge nouther pill ne crouche may hire.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. VIII. 167. Meny crouche on hus cloke and keyes of rome.
a. 1400. Cov. Myst. (Shaks. Soc.), 355. He deyd on crowche.
a. 1420. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 680. Loke whethir In this purs there be ony crosse or crouche.
1463, etc. [see CROUCHMAS].
