crab n.1
1. a gullible person.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘The Jolly Fisherman’ Universal Songster I 133: Fish, just like men, I’ve often caught, / Crabs, gudgeons, poor John, codfish. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 25 Oct. n.p.: Those young crabs had better keep clear of Vinegar Hill, unless they want to get severely ‘punished’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 28 Aug. 1/4: How the bagman hoped to hook the Tommies is not very clear. However, I suppose they thought [...] it might come off. So it did, crabs —six moons. |
2. (Aus.) a police officer.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Oct. 15/1: Yer can easy git the office fr’m the rats or fr’m the ’cabs, / W’en they see th’ limelight shinin’ on the ’elmets of the crabs. |
3. (US police) a police officer who is too conscientious and thus unpopular with local politicians and colleagues.
| Third Degree (1931) 174: He would go to the offended political boss and humbly apologize for being such a ‘crab’. |
4. (US black campus) a freshman.
| Jive and Sl. |
5. (Aus. prison) an individual prisoner who acts in such a way as to provoke a collective punishment.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Crab. A prisoner who invokes collective punishment. Thus ‘crabbing it’ refers to the misbehaviour of a prisoner which leads to the withdrawal of privileges from the group as a whole. |
6. (US black) a weakling.
| et al. A2Z. |
7. (US black) an impoverished person; thus crabship n., poverty.
| Love, Life and Work 🌐 His Crabship proved the contract, and Tom got it in the mazzard. [...] The beggar got the money and Minneapolis Tom got the experience. | |
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 crab Definition: a broke ass nigga. Example: That nigga is a crab. He ain’t even five on that weed. |
8. (N.Z. prison) a prisoner who rarely leaves their cell.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 47/1: crab (also cell crab) n. an inmate who remains constantly in his cell. |
SE in slang uses
Pertaining to an ill-tempered person
In compounds
(US) an unpleasant person, the implication is of nit-picking, whingeing; also as adj.
| Citizens 274: ‘Why don’t you fix this bottom?’ ‘I’ll fix your bottom, you old crab-ass.’. | |
| One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding 108: Git away, you crabass! [Ibid.] 121: He so crab-ass horsey mean lookin. | |
 | Seeing Is Believing 64: I’m sorry for being a crab ass, Jonesy. | |
| Coldest Winter Ever 171: So the crab-ass judge tryna lock me down for a year. | |
| No Mercy 169: ‘Jeeze you're a crab-ass!’ ‘I am not a crab—ass . . . you startled me when you screamed!’ . |
a peevish, surly person.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. |
a sour, ill-tempered person.
| A River Rules My Life 85: Sis, I’m glad it’s you not me living with that old crab-stick for a month. |
General uses
In compounds
see separate entry.
a pair of shoes, usu. in poor condition.
| [ | | Pierce Pennilesse 17: His shoes were the strangest, which, being nothing else but a couple of crab shells, were tooth’d at the toes with two sharp sixpennie nailes]. |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| [ | | Sporting Mag. May X 115/1: His russety shoes, like the shells of two crabs]. |
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Spirit of Irish Wit 104: He stopped by thew way to have his crab shells japanned, i.e. his shoes blacked. | |
| Real Life in London I 385: D—n me if I would give a pair of crazy crabshells without vamp or whelt for the whole boiling of ’em — there is not one of ’em worth a bloody jemmy. | |
| ‘The Shickster To Her Dab Had Gone’ in Flash Chaunter 15: Your Crabshells do not stand to tie, / Your Tile too never mind. | |
| Flash Mirror 18: Trotter cases, mud pipes and boot kivers, carved to fit any pins [...] N.B. — Old pickling tubs and crab shells made and mended. | |
| ‘Bryan O’Lynn’ Dublin Comic Songster 18: Bryan O’Lynn had no brogues to his toes, / He hopped in two crab-shells to serve him for those. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 61: Twig his gams; stage his mud fakers – there’s a pair of crab spoilers – talk of a foot, why it’s fourteen inches. [...] 73: They didn’t like to blue their tin to spare their crab spreaders [feet]. | |
| Sam Sly 9 Dec. 4/3: If [...] you happen to have a pair of ‘crab-shells’ which are only warranted to keep out large stones [...] A bad pair of ‘crabs’ is a certain sign that the owner does not know bow to raise a few shillings. | |
| Gaslight and Daylight 354: When shoes are shoes [...] they’se good for those as like ’em, which I don’t; but when they’re ‘crab-shells,’ and leaky and gummy in the soles [...] the sooner you get shut of ’em the better. | |
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor III 200/1: Now these ’ere shoes [...] with a little mending, they’ll make a tidy pair of crab-shells again. | |
| Wheeling Intelligencer (VA) 6 Mar. 1/7: Boots are called crabshells — an expressive term. | |
| Low-Life Deeps 254: We calls him Old Crabshells, because of the uncommon large size of his shoes. | |
| Sl. Dict. (1890). | |
| Newcastle Courant 2 Sept. 6/5: He sprang into his sticks, drove the old kiddy out of the carriage, and made his crabshells go like seven leagued boots. | |
| Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Crabshells - Shoes. | |
| Answers 20 July 121/2: The state of my crabshells, or boots, pointed to the fact that I had come down in the world [F&H]. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. [as 1882]. | |
| Era 1 Apr. 16/4: 'Ere, I sya, governor [...] go and buy yerself a new pair of crab-shells. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Oct. 11/2: The demise of a very venerable capitalist, call him Giltgore, leads to reflection on the mischief of waiting for crabshells – otherwise shoes. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 12 Mar. 12/5: Wearln of club-footed crab shells, / Dragged on toes twelve inches long. | |
| Slanguage. |
see separate entry.
In phrases
a morose man, a diminutive man.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: squeeze crab a sour looking shrivelled, diminutive fellow. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Londinismen (2nd edn). |