crab – English noun declension

English noun forms of crab

Noun: crab
Singularcrab
Pluralcrabs

Sample Sentences

  • But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either. [1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:]
  • Despite its name, the hermit crab is not a true crab!
  • She so obviously enjoyed every second of the concert that only the most stubborn crab could not have been warmed by her charm. [1983 April 30, Sue Hyde, “Expanding Worldviews”, in Gay Community News, page 12:]
  • Although crabs themselves are an easily treated inconvenience, the patient and his partner(s) clearly run major STD risks.
  • The pilot had to hold fifteen degrees of crab during the approach to keep her plane from getting blown off the localizer course.
  • -- "I suppose you wouldn't like to do a locum for a month on the South coast? Three guineas a week with board and lodging." -- "I wouldn't mind," said Philip. -- "It's at Farnley, in Dorsetshire. Doctor South. You'd have to go down at once; his assistant has developed mumps. I believe it's a very pleasant place." There was something in the secretary's manner that puzzled Philip. It was a little doubtful. -- "What's the crab in it?" he asked. [1915, W.S. Maugham, “chapter 116”, in Of Human Bondage:]
  • Arrested by the low price of another “desirable residence”, I asked “What's the crab?” The agent assured me that there was no crab. I fell in love with this house at sight. Happily, I discovered that it was reputed to be haunted. [1940, Horace Annesley Vachell, Little Tyrannies:]
  • […] the unsold copies may be returned to the original publisher , at a period fixed upon between Christmas and Easter; these returned copies are technically called krebse or crabs, probably, from their walking backwards. […] A says to B, "I have had eight thousand dollars' worth of your publications, three thousand were crabs, that makes five thousand." [1844, Albert Henry Payne, Payne's universum, or pictorial world, page 99:]
  • […] unsold copies and settling the yearly accounts; while for the publisher begins the much dreaded season of "crabs," as […] [1892, The Publishers Weekly, volume 41, page 709:]

Etymology

1. From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“to scratch”), a metathesised o-grade of *gerbʰ- (“to carve, scratch”). More at carve.
2. Cognates
3. See also Dutch krab, Low German Krabb, Danish krabbe, Swedish krabba.
4. 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.
5. Other origins have also been suggested, see Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos) (regarding the possibility of a substrate origin) and Persian خرچنگ (regarding possible ideophonic origin); compare also Old Armenian քարբ (kʻarb), German Krebs. See: Middle English Nouns 'crabbe', Old English Nouns 'crabba', Dutch Nouns 'krab', English Nouns 'creep'.

Verbs referencing "crab"

German Nouns Krabbe, Russian Nouns краб.