Obs. exc. dial. Also 6–7 crowp, 7–9 croop(e, 9 dial. crowp. [This and the synonymous CROAP are app. of imitative origin, having associations with crow, croak, and with an earlier northern verb roup, rope, to call, shout, cry hoarsely, f. ON. hrópja.]
1. intr. To cry hoarsely; to croak as a raven, frog, crane, etc.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VII. Prol. 119. Palamedes byrdis crouping in the sky.
1584. T. Hudson, Judith, in Sylvester’s Du Bartas (1621), 711. And crowping frogs like fishes there doth swarme.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 25. If the little Frogs croope more than ordinarie.
1654. Trapp, Comm. Ps. xiv. 11. As the Raven is said to have crouped from the Capitol when Augustus came to the Empire.
1804. Tarras, Poems, 44 (Jam.). Ye croopin corbies.
1847–78. Halliwell, Croup, to croak. North.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., To crowp, to grunt or grumble…. ‘A crowping,’ that … subdued croaking heard in the bowels from flatulence.
2. ‘To speak hoarsely, as one does under the effects of cold’ (Jamieson).
3. To make the characteristic hoarse ringing cough of the disease called croup.
1801. Med. Jrnl., V. 518. An infant … was heard several times to croup; and its breathing became difficult.
4. To pronounce a rough uvular r (r grasseyé); to have the Northumberland ‘burr.’ (The local expression for this; pron. krup, krhup.)
Mod. He croups like a Newcastle man.
