Other forms: cranks, cranked, cranking
On a bicycle, a crank is the arm that carries a pedal round. Crank length, a bent crank, the crank arm.
The two cranks and the chainring together make the chainset. Crank length affects how a rider pedals and is measured in millimetres. More generally, a crank is any arm that converts a back-and-forth motion into a turning one, which is what a crankshaft does in an engine. As a verb, crank up means to increase — crank up the pressure. Note crank as a noun for an eccentric person with an obsessive theory.
1nouncrankThe arm that carries a pedal or converts motion to rotation.
“The crank had bent and the pedal scraped every turn.”
2verbincreaseTo increase something.
“They cranked up the pressure in about the third week.”
3nouneccentricAn eccentric person with an obsessive theory.
“He was dismissed as a crank for about thirty years and was right.”
crank is a turning arm, or an eccentric.
The word comes from a Germanic root meaning bent or crooked — the same family as cringe and, at a distance, the German krank, meaning ill. A crank is named for its bend, which is the whole of how it works.
Proto-Germanic
*krangaz
Proto-West Germanic
*krank
Low German
krank
English, today
crank
Built from
From Dutch - or Low German krank, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic krank, from Proto-Germanic krangaz, krankaz (“bent; weak”). Cognate with Scots crank, krank, German krank (“sick”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA