crooked, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

crooked adj.

[SE crooked, bent]

1. drunk.

1770		Gent.’s Mag. Dec. 559/2: To express the condition of an Honest Fellow [...] under the Effects of good Fellowship, it is said that he is [...] Crooked.
1834		W.A. Caruthers Kentuckian in N.Y. I 64: I [...] only sipped a little wine, and that made me straight instead of crooked.
1878		Queenslander (Brisbane) 21 Dec. 16s/3: If I catch him goin’ crooked, he’d better look out.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight.
c.1940–5		in ‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 45: The Lord knows what the unfortunate men signed away, crooked drunk inside in the back snug.

2. wrong, out of order.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 33/2: My chum and I had become very uneasy on account of the absence of our ‘pals,’ and we began to think something ‘crooked’ had happened to them.
1879		Dodge City Times 27 Dec. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 405: Means states that these two pieces are the only ones ‘out’ that have a crooked imprint.
1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 9: Crooked ... Anything not right.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer III 182: My word, sir [...] It looked very crooked.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 225: I daren’t count up how much I’ll lose if things go crooked.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 270: S’pose things happen to be going crooked wi’ you, what then?
1929		C. Coe Hooch! 79: There’s bound to be crooked stuff, too.
1943		W.R. Burnett Nobody Lives for Ever 34: [S]oldiers and sailors [...] patrol the roads with loaded guns and if a guy makes a crooked move he’s liable to stop lead.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 80: Not in the least bit like the National School, with [...] the beatings every time you looked crooked.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 55: Soon it’s gone crooked and the law’s startin to poke about.

3. ill, sick, ‘under the weather’.

1931		E. Hemingway letter 26 June in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 342: Arm crooked but servicable.
1969		A. Fugard Boesman and Lena Act I: Am I crooked? It feels that way.
1996		(con. 1970) G. Moxley Danti-Dan in McGuinness Dazzling Dark I ix: I’m crooked from praying for it.
2021		Betoota-isms 260: ‘After a weekend sinking Jim Beams in Bathurst, I came home on Monday cooked as a crumpet’.

4. see crook adj. (7)

SE in slang uses

In compounds

crooked rib (n.) [SE (Adam’s) rib, a wife]

an ill-tempered wife.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Rib [...] A Crooked Rib. a Cross grained Wife.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 211: crooked rib, a cross-grained wife. ‘Folks say that John has a crooked rib’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

crooked stick (n.) [play on SE stick/stick n. (2a)]

(US) a dishonest person, an untrustworthy person.

1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 110: I ain’t a crooked stick.
1862		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd series (1880) 113: The crook’dest stick in all the heap, — Myself.
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 7: crooked stick, n. A dishonest person.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 103: Country expressions for a worthless or untrustworthy person, albeit not necessarily a professional thief, include crooked as a barrel of snakes, crooked as a dog’s hind leg, crooked stick.

crooked tree (n.)

see tree of the triple crook under tree n.

crooked way (n.)

the vagina.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 161: Intersection du corps, f. The female pudendum; ‘the crooked way’.

In phrases

play crooked (v.)

(US) used adv. to double-cross, to cheat.

1930

M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 78: ’You’re getting yourself into trouble by protecting him and he’s double-crossing you.’ [...] ‘You’re a liar,’ she came back at me [...] ‘Him play me crooked? It ain’t so’.