An eccentric person.
1888. He [Major Jackson] exhibited that strong individuality which always accompanies genius, but which the world’s stupidity characterizes only as eccentricity. In this age he would have been called a crank.—‘Southern Hist. Soc. Papers,’ xvi. 44.
1904. All my friends say I’m a genealogical crank.—W. N. Harben, ‘The Georgians,’ p. 210.
1910. This East Side which has created the moral forces that have swung elections, was largely discovered and revealed to the outside world through the efforts of the college settlements, the college investigators, the college cranks of every kind, who stir our disillusioned organs of public opinion to such high merriment.—N.Y. Evening Post, March 14.
