crook n.3
1. the occupation of professional criminality, esp. pickpocketing; thus on the crook
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 107/2: With several worthies of the ‘crook’ [...] ‘lumbering’ and ‘whispering’ was the only means left by which they could raise the wind. |
2. a professional criminal [SE since 20C].
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Chicago Trib. 6 Feb. 5/2: The Times still continues its attacks upon the Government officials in the interest of the Pekin and Peoria crooks [DA]. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Crook - A thief and burglar. One who gets his living on the best. | |
 | Orange Journal 16 Apr. n.p.: Strange as the statement may seem, the public know nothing of the work of the really clever crook, and the police themselves know very little more. The explanation of this ignorance is a very simple one. A crook whose methods are exposed is a second-rate crook [F&H]. | |
| Tramping with Tramps 393: CROOK: a professional criminal. ‘Crooked work’ means thieving. |
3. (Aus.) in sport, a deliberate loss, e.g. in a horse race or prizefight.
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 8 Feb. 5/2: And we took a little wager in our little betting book, / But we found that we were sent for— for the jockey rode a crook. | |
| Mirror of Life 30 Mar. 11/3: Latest revelations give the fight between Burge and Murphy as a crook [...] Murphy said to me: ‘Make a match for £200 a-side and I will go down’ . | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 10 July 1/1: This uproar [...] was brought about by the peculiar tactics of the horse and rider under notice [...] It was one of the most palpable specimens of ‘crook’ ever witnessed on the local course. |
4. (Aus.) a racehorse that has been interfered with so as to guarantee a loss.
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 13 Feb. 1/3: The moneyed mountebanks commissioned to back the ‘crook’ took £20 to £5. |
5. (N.Z. prison) a cook in the prison kitchens.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 49/1: crook n. an inmate who works in the prison kitchen. |
In phrases
(Aus. und.) to perform a crime.
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 28 Sept. 4/2: ‘Balmain Bill, the Socker,’ has been recently converted, and now cannot be induced to do a crook for anything less than a fin. |
1. illicitly, illegally.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 156/1: ’Tain’t up to much on the ‘crook;’ but I’d buy it for my own wear. | |
| ‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 503: We went and screwed (broke into) his place, and got thirty-two quid, and a toy and tackle which he had bought on the crook. | |
| Child of the Jago (1982) 184: I b’lieve ’e’d be afraid to sing out any’ow, for fear o’ bringin’ in the coppers to find all the stuff ’e’s bought on the crook! |
2. working as a professional criminal.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 107/2: Are you on the ‘crook’ meant ‘fakeology’ of every degree and kind. | |
| Child of the Jago (1982) 89: Probably she had boys of her own on the crook. | |
| Hooligan Nights 134: I didn’ say nuffink about bein’ on the crooked. | |
| Marvel 12 Nov. 1: You could not hope to convince his supporters that Snide lived on the crook. | |
| City Of The World 267: He’s tidings o’ comfort and joy to every gonoph on the crook. | |
| Autobiog. of a Thief 35: My retentive mind was [...] fitting itself to carry out its half-formed purpose of ‘going on the crook.’. | |
| They Drive by Night 39: It was better than being on the crook and wondering all the time what was going to happen next. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Look Long Upon a Monkey 186: A bloke on the crook was on his Tod Sloan; no mates, nobody to help him. |
(Aus.) to act in a deceitful manner.
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 Mar. 3/3: ‘Putting on the crook’ [he] gave the astonished Bobby a ‘regular buster’. |