crankle
verbEtymology From crank + -le. Coined by Michael Drayton in 1596. According to the Poly-Olbion project, "Drayton probably derived ‘crankling’ from ‘crank’, a word which had its first recorded usage in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (1594) where it describes a hare which ‘crankes and crosses with a thousand doubles’."
1
To bend, turn, or wind.
- Meander, who is said so intricate to bee, Hath not so many turnes, nor crankling nookes as shee.1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 7 p. 105:
- Along the crankling path.1603, Michael Drayton, The Barons' Wars:
2
To break into bends, turns, or angles; to crinkle.
- Old Vaga's stream […] drew her humid train aslope, / Crankling her banks.1708, John Philips, Cyder: