subs. (old).—1. Sometimes CRANKE.—See quots. and COUNTERFEIT CRANK.
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors (1814), p. 33. These that do counterfet the CRANKE be yong knaues and yonge harlots, that deeply dissemble the falling sicknes. For the CRANK in their language is the fallinge evill.
1610. ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, p. 38 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874]. CRANCKE, the falling sickenesse: and thereupon your Rogues that counterfeit the falling sickenes, are called counterfeit CRANCKS.
2. (old).—Gin and water.—Grose [1785].
3. (American).—An eccentric, a crotcheteer. [From the colloquial CRANKY (q.v.) = full of crotchets; crazy.] Cf., COUNTERFEIT CRANK.
1886. Florida Times Union, 22 May. I know perfectly well that I shall probably be called an old fogy, if not a CRANK, for presuming to think that anything in the past can be better than in the present.
1887. New York Tribune, 4 Nov. A good deal of ridicule, mostly good-natured, is showered upon the base-ball CRANK, as everybody persists in calling the man or woman who manifests any deep interest in the great American game.
1888. Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, 2 Feb. The man was evidently a CRANK, and said that 4,000 dollars were due him by the Government.
Adj. (nautical).—Easily upset: e.g., ‘the skiff is very CRANK.’
