Crookedness. World English Historical Dictionary

Crookedness. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1893, rev. 2025. Crookedness

[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality or state of being crooked.

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  1.  lit. a. generally.

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1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. iv. (1495), 605. The fer stretchyth vpryght wythoute ony crokydnesse.

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1447.  Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 257. Lyht … ryht furth procedyth wyth owte crokydnesse.

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1677.  Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. ii. 55. The apparent crookedness of the Staff in a double medium of Air and Water.

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1858.  Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls. (1872), I. 16. This legend may account for any crookedness of the street.

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  b.  Bodily deformity.

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1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xxviii. (1495), 138. The cause of shrynkynge and crokidnes of the honde.

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1547.  Boorde, Brev. Health, clxiv. 59. Crokednes or curvytie in the backe or shoulders.

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1692.  Locke, Educ., Wks. 1812, IX. 14. Narrow breasts … ill lungs, and crookedness, are the … effects of hard boddice and clothes that pinch.

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  † c.  Math. Curvature. Obs. rare.

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1651.  Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxvii. 156. All deviation from a strait line is equally crookednesse.

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1656.  trans. Hobbes’ Elem. Philos. (1839), 294. The crookedness of the arch of a circle is everywhere uniform.

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  2.  fig. Deviation from rectitude; moral obliquity; perversity, etc.: see CROOKED 3.

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c. 1380.  Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 273. Sich crokidnesse bringiþ aȝen derknesse of mannis liif.

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1576.  Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 393. The crookednesse of my lucke.

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1673.  Lady’s Call., II. i. 59. Youth … easily warps into a crookedness.

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1803.  Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1837), II. 351. There is a crookedness in his policy.

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1875.  Manning, Mission H. Ghost, xi. 305–6. Moral obliquities bring on a crookedness which hinders the faculty of discerning the rectitude of God’s truth.

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  3.  (with pl.) An instance of crookedness; a crooked or bent part. Also fig. A ‘crooked’ piece of conduct.

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1654.  R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 496. As Carpenters bring the square to great unweildy crookednesses, that cannot be moved to it.

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1766.  Pennant, Zool. (1812), III. 401 (R.). A variety of trout, which is naturally deformed, having a strange crookedness near the tail.

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1869.  Trollope, He knew, etc. xxviii. (1878), 159. He lived by the crookednesses of people.

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