sb. and a. Obs. (exc. Hist.) Also 6 crutch-back, crudge bak, 7 crouched-. [f. stem of CROUCH v., associated perhaps with F. croche crook: cf. CROOK-BACK, which is, at least in sense and use, a doublet of this.]
1. A crooked or hunched back. 2. One who has a crooked back, a hunchback. b. attrib. or adj. Having a crooked back, hunchbacked.
c. 1491. in R. Davies, York Records (1843), 221. That Kyng Richard was an ypocryte, a crochebake, & beried in a dike like a dogge.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VII. 366. Sir Edmunde ye kynges other sone, surnamed Crowch Bak.
1519. Douglas, King Hart, II. liv. A crudge bak that cairfull cative bure.
1592. R. Johnson, Nine Worthies, A iij. Aesope for all his crutchback, had a quick wit.
1627. Speed, England, xxx. § 6. Robert Bossu, the Crouch-backe Earl of that Prouince.
1700. J. Brome, Trav. Eng., ii. (1707), 66. Crouch-back Robert, Earl [of Leicester] … raised a Rebellion against King Henry II.
(As a cognomen of Edmund, brother of Edward I., it was contended by some 17th-c. writers that Crouchback meant ‘crossed-back,’ as in Crouched friars; but this is not compatible with the form CROOK-BACK, which goes back to the 15th c., and answers to the ‘Edmundus dorsum habuit fractum,’ attributed to John of Gaunt in the Continuatio Eulogii (Rolls, 1863), III. 369.
Cf. 1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., VII. ii. (1632), 199.
1640. Yorke, Union Hon., 22.
1677. F. Sandford, Geneal. Hist. Kings Eng., 103.]
Hence † Crouch-backed a.
1606. Holland, Sueton., 211. A man very low of stature and withall crowchbacked.
1630. M. Godwyn, trans. Bp. Hereford’s Ann. Eng. (1675), 148. Crouch-backed Mary [married] to Martin Kayes Groom Porter.
c. 1707. in Maidment, Sc. Pasquils (1868), 375. The crouch backed Count.
