crutch n.1
1. a crutch-handled walking-stick, the badge of the late 19C man-about-town.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘’Arry on Crutches’ in Punch 3 May 201/1: It wasn’t no or’nary mind as developed the toothpick and crutch. | |
 | ‘The Flippity-Flop Young Man’ in (ed.) Parodies IV (1887) 127/2: I’m a worship the lily young man, / Crutch and tooth pick-a-dilly young man. | |
| Good Company (N.Y.) VII 441/2: But what they know about such things I wonder very much, It’s a glorious institution is the toothpick and the crutch. | |
| in Booth Pink Parade (1933) 145: How d’you like the La di Da, the toothpick and the crutch? / How did you get those trousers on, and did they hurt you much? | |
| Penny Showman 2: A white hard felt hat with a black band, patent button boots, field glasses, crutch and toothpick stick. |
2. one who carries such a walking-stick, thus a man-about-town.
| Sporting Times 8 Mar. 1/1: A young ‘crutch’ went into the Raleigh the other day and [...] this conversation took place. ‘Crutch’: ‘Aw, Hobson, do you know of any horses for saled. Aw’. | |
| Sporting Times 3 Jan. 4/4: Crutch is about to be married, and boldy says so. ‘Is she pretty?’ asks Toothpick. | |
| Mirror of Life 14 Mar. 15/2 : That this bet [£10,000 to £1] equals, or rather exceeds, in odds the one ‘Crutch’ Robinson laid against as eventual winner, one hundred pounds to a walking-stick. |
3. (bingo) the number seven; usu. as one little crutch; thus all the crutches, 77.
| www.ildado.com 🌐 Bingo Nicknames [...] 7... One little crutch. |
4. (drugs) a device (a thin piece of cardboard, usu. a matchbook cover, rolled into a cylindrical shape) used to hold the last portion of a marijuana cigarette that has become too hot to hold in the fingers.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Marihuana 48: Such a holder in the New Orleans vernacular is known as a ‘crutch’. | |
| Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction. | |
| Drugs from A to Z (1970) 72: crutch Rolled matchbook cover, hairpin, tweezers, etc., used for holding a marijuana butt (roach) that has been smoked down too far to be held between the fingers. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 210: device such as an alligator clip to hold a marijuana butt [...] crutch. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 171: Fire up, pass around, git d’ crutch out fo’ d’ roach. |
5. (US) any form of (commercially produced) cheating aid used in a test or examination.
| et al. CUSS. |
In phrases
a broad group of ‘stage door johnnies’ and men-about-town whose sartorial badges were a crutch-handled walking-stick and a toothpick (of the dental variety), also used without ‘brigade’ etc. as an identifier of the type.
| Convict Life 120: The Hon. Arthur Numskull, of the Crutch and Toothpick brigade. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Falkirk Herald 1 May 6/2: [Y]ou will see the Crutchstick and Toothpick Brigade in all their glory, it is pitiful sight. [...] All that the tailor and haberdasher can do lor them has been done; but fine feathers not make fine birds. These specimens of the gilded youth of the period are for the most part microcephalous [...] their eyes have that fishy look which comes from premature plunging into the mud-bath of dissipation. | |
| Sporting Times 8 Mar. 1/2: ‘Do you know anything about this race, Mr Yonder?’ said a crutch-and-toothpick youth. | |
| London Life 14 June 4/2: [T]he degenerate and empty-headed bearers of the Crutch and Toothpick School. | |
| London Life 23 Aug. 3/1: [H]e [i.e. a money-lender] is ever on the look out for fresh prey, and amid the Crutches and Toothpicks he finds many a rich fool suited to his purpose. | |
| London Dly News 11 Jan. 2/1: The genus ‘swell’ is almost absent [...] the crowed appears to be made up of dissipated clerks [...] Some are made up in strict imitation of the orthodox crutch-and-toothpick type. | |
| Stray Shots 155: What a deal of good it would do the crutch and toothpick brigade to have to serve a year with the colours in the territorial army . | |
| Rival Queens 239: The poor child was wending her way homeward, when she was waylaid by a prowler of the Crutch and Toothpick Brigade. | |
| Piccadilly to Pall Mall 118: Quite a feature of London life in the ’seventies and early ’eighties was the ‘Crutch and Toothpick Brigade’. | |
| (ref. to 1880s) Our Stage and Its Critics (2007) 253: The ‘mashers’ and ‘crutch and toothpick brigade’ of the stage were rather the progenitors than imitators of the type. | |
| (ref. to 1880s) Blinds Down 18: He despised what was known in those days as ‘the crutch and toothpick brigade,’ speaking of them scathingly to Rosetta as the ‘la-di-da lot!’. |
a generic term for old and decrepit males.
| DSUE (8th edn) 275/2: C.20. |
1. (US) wholly devoid of humour; but note positive use (poss. misinterpretation) in cite 1899.
| Dly Item (Sunbury, PA) 11 Nov. 1/2: The piece abounds in bright speeches and strong situations and is generally as funny as a crutch. | |
| S.F. Call 6 Nov. 2/6: The push began to mourn [...] and situation became as funny as a crutch. | |
| Mutt & Jeff 6 Jan. [synd. cartoon] You’re as funny as a crutch. | |
| Amer. Diaries 1902-1926 (1983) 28 Jan. 125: Say Andy. Your as funny as a crutch. | |
| Flying Mag. Sept. 171: This would be funny as a crutch coming from any one but you. | |
| ‘Wazoff’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 29 July 28/4: ‘Cripes, that’s funny,’ says Brusher, lookin’ at me serious. ‘It’s about as funny as a crutch,’ I says. | |
| Adventures of a Young Man [ebook] Irving Silverstone had gone to Harlem with them and acted funny as a crutch. | |
| letter in Life 30 June 28: Your article on muni golf is as funny as a crutch. The disappearance of recreational opportunities for urban Americans is no joke. |
2. (US) very funny.
| Michigan Alumnus 31 174/2: I’m supposed to be serious , and if I’m just silly instead it ought to be funny as a crutch. |
(US short order) of tea or coffee, served without milk.
| Sun (N.Y.) 28 Mar. 2/6: ‘Hong Kong on crutches’ is tea without milk. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 13 Jan. 8/3: Gimme a cup o’ coffee on crutches. |