Crook

Crook (pronounced krook)

(1) A bent or curved implement, piece, appendage, etc; hook.

(2) The hooked part of anything.

(3) An instrument or implement having a bent or curved part, as a shepherd's staff hooked at one end or the crosier of a bishop or abbot.

(4) A bend or curve; a bent or curved part; a curving piece or portion of something).

(5) In slang, a person who steals, lies, cheats or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal; to steal, cheat, or swindle; an artifice; a trick; a contrivance.

(6) To bend; curve; a bend or curve.

(7) In slang, sick; unwell; feeble (Australia & New Zealand).

(8) In slang, out of order; functioning improperly; unsatisfactory; disappointing (Australia & New Zealand).

(9) In etiquette (as “to crook the knee”), a bending of the knee; a genuflection.

(10) A lock or curl of hair (obsolete).

(11) In structural engineering, a support beam consisting of a post with a cross-beam resting upon it; a bracket or truss consisting of a vertical piece, a horizontal piece, and a strut.

(12) A specialized staff with a semi-circular bend (called “the hook”) at one end and used by shepherds to control their flocks (a small scale version of which (as the “pothhook”) is used in cooking to suspend a pot over a heat-source.

(13) In the traditional Christian churches, a bishop's standard staff of office, the shape of which emulates those historically used by shepherds, an allusion to the idea of Christ’s relationship to his followers as that of “a shepherd of his flock”, mentions in several passages in scripture including John 10:11 (I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep) and Psalm 23:1 (The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want).

(14) In music, a small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn etc to change its pitch or key.

1125-1175: From the Middle English croke & crok (hook-shaped instrument or weapon; tool or utensil consisting of or having as an essential component a hook or curved piece of metal), from the Old English crōc (hook, bend, crook (although the very existence of crōc in Old English is contested by some), from the Proto-Germanic krōkaz (bend, hook), from the primitive Indo-European greg- (tracery, basket, bend).  It was cognate with Old Norse krokr & krāka (hook), the Dutch kreuk (a bend, fold; wrinkle), the Middle Low German kroke & krake (fold, wrinkle), the Danish krog (crook, hook), the Swedish krok (crook, hook), the Icelandic krókur (hook) and the Old High German krācho (hooked tool).    Crook is a noun, verb & adjective, crooks is a verb; crooked is a verb & adjective, crooking is a noun & verb, crooker & crookest are adjectives, crookedly is a adverb and crookedness is a noun; the noun plural is crooks.

Lindsay Lohan with crooked Harvey Weinstein (b 1952).

Crooked (bent, curved, in a bent shape) emerged in the early thirteenth century, the past-participle adjective from the verb crook and the figurative sense of “dishonest, false, treacherous, not straight in conduct; To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist” was from the same era, the familiar synonyms including rogue, villain, swindler, racketeer, scoundrel, robber, cheat, shyster, knave, pilferer and shark.  In that sense it was from the Middle English crooken, croken & crokien, from the Old English crōcian, from the Proto-West Germanic krōkōn (to bend, wrinkle) and was developed from the noun.  It was cognate with the Dutch kreuken (to crease, rumple) and the German Low German kröken (to bend, offend, suppress).

Leading the flock: Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) with his bishop's crook.

The use in the slang of Australia, New Zealand emerged in the nineteenth century and was use variously to convey (1) something or the conduct of someone held to be unsatisfactory or not up to standard, (2) feeling ill or (3) annoyed, angry; upset (as in “to be crook about” or “to go crook at”), the comparative being crooker, the superlative crookest.  The sense of “a swindler” was a creation of late nineteenth century US English and developed from the earlier figurative use as “dishonest, crooked in conduct”, documented since at least the early 1700s, these notions ultimately derived from the use of crook in Middle English to describe a “dishonest trick”, a form prevalent in waring against the means to which the Devil would resort to tempt.  In idiomatic use, “arm in crook” describes two people walking arm-in-arm (ie the arms linked in the crook of the elbow) and “by hook or by crook” means “by any means necessary” although the origin of this has always puzzled etymologists.

In the White House, crooked Hillary was the gift which just kept giving.

Clockwise from left: Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989), Walter Cronkite (1916–2009; CBS Evening News Anchor 1962-1981), James Brady (1940–2014; White House Press Secretary 1981-1989), David Gergen (b 1942; US political operative), Ed Meese (b 1931, US attorney-general 1985–1988), George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993), James Baker (b 1930; US secretary of state 1989-1992) and Burton "bud" Benjamin (1917–1988; CBS News executive 1957-1982) (the White House, 1981, left) and Ronald Reagan recalls the moment with Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001), the White House, 1992, right).

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) gained, however unhappily, the most memorable of the monikers Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 & since 2025) applied so effectively in his campaigns first to secure the Republican nomination and then win the 2016 presidential election.  It was a novel approach to electioneering but there had before been crookedness in the oval office, some of the conduct in the nineteen century truly scandalous and one of Richard Nixon’s not unjustified complaints about life was he and his administration being subject to a level of scrutiny never inflicted on his (Democratic Party) predecessors.  That was illustrated during one of Nixon’s few happy moments during the Watergate scandal when on 26 September 1973 when his speechwriter Pat Buchanan (b 1938) appeared before a congressional committee investigating the manner.  The committee had taken some delight in conducting lengthy sessions during which various Republican Party figures were questioned but as Buchanan produced the facts and figures documenting decades of dirty tricks and actual illegalities by successive Democrat administrations, committee counsel Sam Dash (1925–2004) got him “…off the stand as quickly as possible”.  So crooked Hillary was part of a long political tradition and the label stuck so well to her because it according with the perceptions of many although, in fairness, there were plenty who’d done worse and suffered less. Presumably, crooked Hillary watched with interest to see if any branch of the US justice system succeeded in declaring Donald Trump crooked and she must have been disappointed that although able to be labelled a "convicted felon", the offence related only to a relatively minor matter connected with hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels (stage name of Stephanie Gregory, b 1979). One way on another, she could be waiting for some time.

Warren Harding (1865–1923, US president 1921-1923).

Unfairly or not, Warren Harding is now often called crooked, primarily because of the link with the "Teapot Dome" (the name from a geological feature and the affair would these days be called "Teapotdomegate") scandal which occurred under his administration but he wasn’t personally implicated.  However, Teapot Dome was one of many scandals on his watch so his reputation suffered.  Harding was aware he was betrayed by many of the friends and cronies he'd appointed to high office, in 1923 telling one associate: "I have no trouble with me enemies... but my damn friends, my God-damn friends... they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"  He dropped dead while still in office, probably a good career move though such was the mood in Washington DC that rumors circulated his wife had poisoned him so he'd not have to endure more revelations about the sleaze and corruption in his administration.  While it's never been suggested Harding's own fingers were "in the till", he can't escape for the crookedness which occurred under what should have been his gaze.  Soon after becoming president, he lamented: "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.  I am a man of limited talents from a small town .  I don't seem to grasp that I am president.  I know how far from greatness I am."  It was an unusual admission from a politician but the real problem was how far he was from even a mediocre adequacy.  In a sense it was not his fault because the Republican Party machine, unable to organize the numbers for any of the second-rate field seeking the nomination for 1920, settled on Harding as a "third-rate compromise".  His nomination was thrashed out in "smoke-filled rooms" (then literally that) and the country got exactly what the party had paid for.

Richard Nixon (1913–1994, US president 1969-1974) & Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973, US president 1963-1969), the White House, 1968.

The 1964 US presidential election in which the candidates were the incumbent Democrat Lyndon Johnson and the Republican Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) was characterized as a contest between “a crook and a kook”, "crooked old Lyndon" notorious for his dubious business and political dealings in Texas and "crazy old Barry", probably unfairly, characterised by his opponents as, from time-to time, unhinged.  The electorate was apparently sanguine about the character traits of the two and, given the choice on election day, voted for the crook, LBJ enjoying one of the biggest electoral landslides in history although his presidency would end badly; consumed by the war in Vietnam, he didn't seek to again run in the 1968 which saw Richard Nixon win in what was the most improbable comeback from political adversity until Donald Trump's victory in 2024.

Richard Nixon with Checkers the dog (1952-1964), Washington DC, 1959.  Sometime during the Watergate scandal (if not before) Nixon may have reflected on the remark attributed to Frederick the Great (Frederick II (1712–1786, Prussian king 1740-1786) ): "The more I know of the character of men, the more I appreciate the company of dogs".

Already a national figure for this and that, Richard Nixon added to his notoriety by denying crookedness in his "Checkers speech", made in 1952, denying allegations of impropriety which had threatened his place on the Republican ticket as General Dwight Eisenhower’s (1890–1969, US president 1953-1961) running mate in that year’s election.  Though at the time criticised by sophisticates unimpressed by the maudlin, soap opera tone (Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) had in 1944 used his dog Fala in a speech but he'd played it for laughs), among the public the “Checkers speech” worked and Nixon’s political career survived but two decades later, another speech with the same purpose failed to hold back the Watergate tide.  Held in Florida’s Disney's Contemporary Resort, it was at the 1973 press conference Nixon declared “…in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice... People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.”  Little more than a year later, facing impeachment and removal from office, Nixon resigned although, to be fair, when he said “I’m not a crook”, he was speaking of his personal tax arrangements and not the Watergate affair but aspects of his legacy, like those of some of his predecessors and successors, need to be assessed separately from his crookedness.

Comrade Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976, left), Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) and Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) recalling Nixon's visit to China in 1972.  It's a popular word in politics.  In 1940, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was advised by George VI (1895–1952; King of the United Kingdom 1936-1952) not to include Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) in his administration; among the king’s many concerns was being aware of the reasons the press lord had gained his nickname “been a crook”.