crock

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kɹɒk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɹɑk/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /kɹɔk/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒk
• Homophone: croc

From Middle English crok, crokke (“earthenware jar, pot, or other container; cauldron; belly, stomach”) [and other forms], from Old English crocc, crocca (“crock, pot, vessel”) [and other forms],^[1][2] from Proto-Germanic *krukkō, *krukkô (“vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *growg- (“vessel”).

The English word is cognate with Danish and Norwegian krukke (“jar”), Dutch kruik (“jar, jug”), regional German Kruke (“crock”), Icelandic krukka (“pot, jar”), Old English crōg, crōh (“crock, pitcher, vessel”). See also cruse.

crock (plural crocks)

1. A stoneware or earthenware jar or storage container.
   • 1590-96, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 1750, The Works of Spenser, Volume 3, page 181,

     Therefore the Vulgar did about him flock / And cluster thick unto his leaſings vain; / Like fooliſh Flies about an Honey-Crock; / In hope by him great Benefit to gain, / And uncontrolled Freedom to obtain.

2. A piece of broken pottery, a shard.
3. (UK) A person who is physically limited by age, illness or injury.

   old crocks’ home ― home for the aged

   • 1925, John Buchan, John Macnab, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0300621:

     He was getting very proud of the way he had learned to manage his game leg, and it occurred to him that here was a chance of testing his balance. […] “Not so bad that, for a crock,” he told himself, as he lay full length in the sun watching the faint line of the Haripol hills overtopping the ridge of Crask.

   • 1932, Helen Simpson, Boomerang, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0800611:

     He was in love with a girl, whose full name he did not tell me, and whom he had not seen for two years. She was a Lady Diana Someone, so much I knew, very lovely, a sort of relation, and he believed he had a chance if only the doctors could do something to help his asthma. “Can′t ask a girl to marry a crock.”

   • 2006, The Moving Finger, part one (Miss Marple, 15 min, 20 year old bicycling tomboy to injured walker):

     Girl: "Will you always be a bit of a crock?"
     Man: "According to my doctor, no."
     Girl: "I was afraid you looked bad-tempered because you were crocked up for life."

4. (UK) An old or broken-down vehicle (and formerly a horse or ewe).

   Synonyms: banger; see also Thesaurus:old car

   old crocks race ― veteran car rally

5. (slang, Canada, US, countable and uncountable) Silly talk, a foolish belief, a poor excuse, nonsense.

   That's a bunch of crock.

   The story is a crock.

6. A low stool.
   • 1709, Isaac Bickerstaff (Richard Steele), The Tatler, 1822, Alexander Chalmers (editor), The Tatler, 2007 Facsimile Edition, page 12,

     I then inquired for the person that belonged to the petticoat; and, to my great surprise, was directed to a very beautiful young damsel, with so pretty a face and shape, that I bid her come out of the crowd, and seated her upon a little crock at my left hand.

7. (medical slang, derogatory) A patient who is difficult to treat, especially one who complains of a minor or imagined illness.
   • 1959, Kenneth Hammond, Fred Kern, Teaching Comprehensive Medical Care‎^[470], →OCLC, pages A: Well, yes. Nobody likes crocks. Q: Why not? A: They're a nuisance. There is nothing ever wrong with them and they are even so peculiar they never have diseases other people do.:
   • 1976, Stephen Charles Frankel, Emergency Medical Care in an Urban Area‎^[1], page 118:

     Mumford (1970) noted that the terms ‘crock’, ‘gomer’, and ‘turkey’, were sometimes utilized by interns to designate different types of undesirable patients, and sometimes used synonymously.

crock (third-person singular simple present crocks, present participle crocking, simple past and past participle crocked)

1. To break something or injure someone.
   • 1904, P.G. Wodehouse, The Gold Bat‎^[2]:

     "That last time I brought down Barry I crocked him. He's in his study now with a sprained ankle. ..."

   • 2007 January 3, Daily Mirror:

     Thousands of cars crocked by dodgy fuel

   • 2006 April 30, The Sunday Times:

     Ferreira ... peremptorily expunges England’s World Cup chances by crocking Wayne Rooney.

2. (textiles, leatherworking) To transfer coloring through abrasion from one item to another.
   • 1917, John H. Pfingsten, "Colouring-matter for leather and method of using the same" [3], US Patent 1371572, page 1:

     thus producing a permanent, definite color thereon which will not fade or crock, and at the same time using up all of the coloring matter.

   • 1964, Isabel Barnum Wingate, Know Your Merchandise, page 109:

     Colored fabrics should be dried separately for the first few times to prevent crocking (rubbing off of dye).

   • 2002, Sandy Scrivano, Sewing With Leather & Suede‎^[4], →ISBN, page 95:

     In leather garments, lining also prevents crocking of color onto skin or garments worn underneath.

3. (horticulture) To cover the drain holes of a planter with stones or similar material, in order to ensure proper drainage.
   • 1900, H.A. Burberry, The Amateur Orchid Cultivators' Guide Book, page 21:

     The pots should be crocked for drainage to one-half their depth and the plants made moderately firm in the compost, as already indicated...

4. (transitive, now dialectal) To put or store (something) in a crock or pot.
   • 1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug:

     She filled the pail and carried it down to the springhouse to crock it and leave it to cool.

Compare Welsh croeg (“cover”), Scots crochit (“covered”).

crock (uncountable)

1. The loose black particles collected from combustion, as on pots and kettles, or in a chimney; soot; smut.
2. Colouring matter that rubs off from cloth.

crock (third-person singular simple present crocks, present participle crocking, simple past and past participle crocked)

1. (intransitive) To give off crock or smut.

• Krueger, Dennis (December 1982). "Why On Earth Do They Call It Throwing?" Studio Potter Vol. 11, Number 1.[5] (etymology)
• “crock”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “crock”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “crock”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “crock”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

• IPA^(key): [krɔk], [krok]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

crock (plural crocks)

1. an old ewe which has ceased bearing

From Middle English crokke, from Old English crocca.

crock (plural crocks)

1. crock (large earthenware vessel for holding milk, cream, salt, butter, etc.)

• crockanition (“complete destruction, fragments”)
• crockums (“refuse of fish livers after the oil has been extracted”)