Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to start up a mechanical device, esp. a car engine (but not with an actual crank handle); usu. as crank up; also fig. use.

1929		J.T. Farrell ‘Calico Shoes’ in Fellow Countrymen (1937) 53: When he cranks his jaw up, the story’s ended.
1942		C.R. Bond 4 Mar. in A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 122: Newkirk’s Second Squadron swapped a couple of good P-40s for our two clunkers and we started cranking them up.
1962		C. Clausen I Love You Honey, But the Season’s Over 64: Cynthia [...] cranked up her phonograph.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 131: He didn’t get back till dawn and had no time to crank up his typewriter and compose his piece.
1983		(con. 1970) S. Wright Meditations in Green (1985) 212: Let’s crank up this bird and get out of here.
1994		Indep. Mag. 6 Aug. 36: He enjoys his work, rolling along dirt roads [...] air conditioning cranked up high.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 202: The sound of the train cranking up.
2003		P. Cornwell Blow Fly (2004) 150: I guess I’d better crank her up to make sure the battery ain’t dead.

2. to turn up the volume of a radio, etc; to talk, sing or play music at a higher volume; usu. as crank up.

1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 179: He cranked up the piano once more, and I legged it for the open.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 400: ‘Sing!’ ‘Crank up!’.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 92: Uncle Sam cranks up the Voice of America wattage to stimulate new riots.
1983		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 2: crank tunes – to play music at a high volume.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 321: The sperm-whale music had been cranked up to maximum volume.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 333: I’d crank up the volume and try to blast all that whiteness out of my head.
1997		(con. 1970s) G. Pelecanos King Suckerman (1998) 91: Cooper [...] kept the volume cranked.
2006		R. Antoni Carnival 189: A minute later the soca was cranking again.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 134: Even with the A/C cranked up [...] I was regretting putting on a jacket and tie.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 135: The bus pulled in [...] cranking Whodini’s ‘Five Minutes of Funk’.

3. (US) to get, to prepare (oneself); usu. as crank up.

1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 372: I’m going downstairs to get them ready to crank up.
1977		(con. 1969) M. Herr Dispatches 7: He wanted to throw a spontaneous operation for us, crank up his whole brigade and get some people killed.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 103: All the way out here, he could hear the next band cranking up.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 118: His oldies waved. He tried to crank up a smile for them.

4. (drugs) to light a cannabis cigarette.

1998

P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 15: ‘You better crank up one of them reefers [...] get mellow’.

5. (drugs) to inject narcotics with a hypodermic syringe; usu. as crank up.

1980		S. McConville ‘Prison Language’ in Michaels & Ricks (1980) 526: Injection may be described as [...] cranking up [...] it might be said, ‘He cranked up with a deck of heroin.’.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 7: Cranking up — To inject a drug.
2012		C. Stella Rough Riders 84: They cranked up before I got home [...] They were skying when I walked in.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 72: The absurdity of the situation — me about to crank and the boss at the door.

6. (US prison) to roll a cigarette.

1971–2

C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 201: ‘Crank one up, boss?’ v. – asking permission to roll a cigarette.

7. (US teen) an all-purpose word of movement, e.g. crank oneself together, crank to school.

1965		W.C. Anderson Adam M-1 202: My mother spent years telling me how to fight off lecherous lovers. I wish she had spent more time telling me how to crank one up.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 93: We cranked by Charlie Papa Alpha, a beat-up looking, falling-down Esso gas station.
1997		J. Birmingham Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (1998) 91: Every Sunday morning he’d crank up the kitchen, cook a mountainous stack of pancakes.
1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 crank an Eight Ball v 1. to defecate. (‘I just cranked a mean eight ball!’).
2001		C. McPherson Port Authority 13: He was trying to persuade the Bangers to crank up and do a few songs.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 38: She cranks a U-turn [...] tools west on Sunset.

8. to intensify, to do something more energetically; usu. as crank up.

1965		S. Selvon Housing Lark 41: Nobby like to crank him up.
1971		J. Simon Sign of Fool 9: We didn’t meditate on the subject and cranked it on, taking the lights at ninety.
1981		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 3: crank – to study intensively.
1986		S. King It (1987) 452: [of a storm] A proper old jeezer is starting to crank up outside.
1998		Source Oct. 226: Right from the first cut [...] the party cranks up.
2000		Observer Screen 9 Jan. 24: Burke was clearly asked to compensate for the absence of jokes [...] by swearing and cranking up the estuary vowels.

9. (drugs) to become intoxicated by an amphetamine; thus cranked (up) adj. [plus ref. to crank n.² (2)].

1974		Frank Zappa ‘Pygmy Twylyte’ 🎵 Crankin’ an’ a-coke’n / In the Winchell’s do-nut Midnite.
1991		D. Gaines Teenage Wasteland 189: I spent several months cranked on ‘crystal meth’.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 47/1: crank v. to speed, to experience a ‘high’ from taking amphetamines.
2008		D.R. Pollock ‘Assailants’ in Knockemstiff 127: The speed-freak nurses from the VA hospital were starting early today. First, they’d get cranked up at home, then go out trolling for men in the bars uptown.

10. see crank out