crutch

From Middle English crucche, from Old English cryċċ (“crutch, staff”), from Proto-West Germanic *krukkju, from Proto-Germanic *krukjō (“crutch, staff”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewg- (“wrinkle, bend”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, bend”).

Cognate with Scots curche, crutch (“crutch, stilts”), Dutch kruk (“crutch”), Low German krukke, Krück (“crutch”), German Krücke (“crutch”), Swedish krycka (“crutch”). Latin crucia, crucca, croccia, crocia (“crutch”), and its descendants are ultimately from the Germanic.

• IPA^(key): /kɹʌt͡ʃ/
• Rhymes: -ʌtʃ

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crutch (plural crutches)

1. A device to assist in motion as a cane, especially one that provides support under the arm to reduce weight on a leg.

   He walked on crutches for a month until the cast was removed from his leg.

   • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     I'll lean upon one crutch, and fight with the other.

2. Something that supports, often used negatively to indicate that it is not needed and causes an unhealthful dependency; a prop

   Alcohol became a crutch to help him through the long nights; eventually it killed him.

   • 1710, Edmund Smith, A poem on the death of Mr. John Philips:

     Rhyme […] is […] at best a crutch that lifts the weak alone.

3. A crotch; the area of body where the legs fork from the trunk.
4. A form of pommel for a woman's saddle, consisting of a forked rest to hold the leg of the rider.
5. (nautical) A knee, or piece of knee timber.
6. (nautical) A forked stanchion or post; a crotch.

crutch (third-person singular simple present crutches, present participle crutching, simple past and past participle crutched)

1. (transitive) To support on crutches; to prop up.
   • 1682, [Nahum Tate; John Dryden], The Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel. A Poem. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 13:

     [I'll] haſten Og and Doeg to rehearſe, / Two Fools that Crutch their Feeble Senſe on Verſe; / Who by my Muſe to all ſucceeding times, / Shall live in ſpight of their own Dogrell Rhimes.

2. (intransitive) To move on crutches.
3. (transitive) To shear the hindquarters of a sheep; to dag.
   • 2010 January 29, Emma Partridge, “Richie Foster a cut above the rest”, in Stock Journal‎:

     After learning how to crutch at 13, he could dag 400 sheep in a day by the spring of 1965 and earned himself more than just a bit of pocket money.

4. (transitive, in soap-making) to stir with a crutch.

• crutcher