Persons whom the Americans since Guiteau’s trial have begun to designate as‘cranks’—that is to say, persons of disordered mind, in whom the itch of notoriety supplies the lack of any higher ambition.
1901 July 19, “Gleanings”, inThe Agricultural Journal and Mining Record[1], volume 4, number10, page318:
The raw meatcranks are in dead earnest. They think that raw food is the manna of heaven.
But do you know what isn't in the school books? That old Rossum was mad. Seriously, Miss Glory, you must keep this to yourself. The oldcrank wanted to actually make people.
(informal) An amateur in science or other technical subjects who persistently advocates flawed theories.
Thatcrank next door thinks he’s created cold fusion in his garage.
FromMiddle Englishcrank,cronk, from a shortening ofOld Englishcrancstæf(“weaving tool, crank”, literally“bent or crooked staff”), the first element ultimately related to Etymology 1 above.
Abent piece of anaxle orshaft, or an attached armperpendicular, or nearly so, to the end of a shaft or wheel, used toimpart a rotation to a wheel or other mechanical device; also used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion.
I grind my coffee by hand with a coffee grinder with acrank handle.
The act of converting power into motion, by turning acrankshaft.
Yes, acrank was all it needed to start.
Give it a forcefulcrank.
1964 November, E. N. Bellass, “Some questions for Mr. Mugliston”, inModern Railways, page330:
By comparision, consider the conductor of a double-decked Blackpool tram on August Monday, who hurries up and down stairs to a hundred or more passengers and serves each one by a simplecrank of a handle.
(archaic) Any bend, turn, or winding, as of a passage.
1596,Edmund Spenser,The Faerie Queene, The Cantos of Mutabilitie Canto 7
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crank (mechanism) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia