crotchet

Meaning

Noun

1. A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.
2. (obsolete) A sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook
3. (historical) A hook-shaped instrument, especially as used in obstetric surgery.
4. (archaic) A whim or a fancy.
5. A forked support; a crotch.
6. (historical) An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.
7. The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.
8. A square bracket.

Verb

1. (obsolete) to play music in measured time
2. (alt-of, archaic) Archaic form of crochet (“knit by looping”).

Synonyms

quarter note

hook

🪝

oddity

fishhook

queerness

quirk

craze

quirkiness

caprice

fad

strangeness

tenterhook

uppercut

vagary

weirdness

whim

a quarter

a fourth

obstetric hook

becket

quarternote

brooch

crank

crochet

crotch

curiousness

hitch

hook and eye

kink

maggot

Translations

noire

Viertelnote

semiminima

semínima

negra

τέταρτο

tuhaf

deli

meraklı

kwartnoot

acayip

Haken

🪝

quarto

4th

gancio

🪝

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈkɹɑt͡ʃ.ɪt/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: crochet

In summary

From Middle English crochet, from Old French crochet (“small hook”), from croc + -et (diminutive suffix), from Old Norse krókr (“hook”). The musical note was named so because of a small hook on its stem in black notation (in modern notation this hook is on the quaver/eighth note). Doublet of crochet, crocket, and croquet.