crab

Meaning

Noun

1. A crustacean of the infraorder Brachyura, having five pairs of legs, the foremost of which are in the form of claws, and a carapace.
2. The meat of this crustacean, served as food; crabmeat.
3. A bad-tempered person.
4. (informal) An infestation of pubic lice (Pthirus pubis).
5. The angle by which an aircraft's nose is pointed upwind of its groundtrack to compensate for crosswinds during an approach to landing; its crab angle.
6. (slang) A playing card with the rank of three.
7. A position in rowing where the oar is pushed under the rigger by the force of the water.
8. A defect in an outwardly normal object that may render it inconvenient and troublesome to use.
9. An unsold book that is returned to the publisher.

Verb

1. To fish for crabs.
2. (slang) To ruin.
3. To complain.
4. To complain about.
5. To drift or move sideways or to leeward (by analogy with the movement of a crab).
6. To move in a manner that involves keeping low and clinging to surfaces.
7. To navigate (an aircraft, e.g. a glider) sideways against an air current in order to maintain a straight-line course.
8. To move (a camera) sideways.
9. (obsolete) to fly slightly off the straight-line course towards an enemy aircraft, as the machine guns on early aircraft did not allow firing through the propeller disk.
10. To back out of something.

Verb

1. (obsolete) To irritate, make surly or sour
2. To be ill-tempered; to complain or find fault.
3. To cudgel or beat, as with a crabstick

Pronounced as (IPA)

/kɹæb/

Etymology

From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“scratch, claw at”), a metathesised o-grade of *gerbʰ-. More at carve.
Cognates
See also Dutch krab, Low German Krabb, Danish krabbe, Swedish krabba.
Further cognates with frequentative-infix are Saterland Frisian krabbelje (“to creep, crawl”), Dutch krabbelen (“to scratch”) and German krabbeln (“to crawl”). Possibly related to English creep and Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”) etc.