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unning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. Locke. We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. Bacon.

To bend or curve [Obs.] Crooked and curbed lines. Holland.

The act of bending or crooking.

Bent without angles; crooked; curved; as, a curve line; a curve surface.

Having a curved or crooked tail.

Having a crooked beak, as the crossbill.

The state of being curved; a bending in a regular form; crookedness. Holder.

One of a breed of small dogs with short crooked legs, and long body; -- called also badger dog. There are two kinds, the rough- haired and the smooth-haired.

Straight; not crooked, oblique, or circuitous; leading by the short or shortest way to a point or end; as, a direct line; direct means. What is direct to, what slides by, the question. Locke.

The state of being distorted, or twisted out of shape or out of true position; crookedness; perversion.

A trifing matter; an object of contempt. [Obs.] England were but a fling Save for the crooked stick and the gray goose wing. Old Proverb. To have one's fling, to enjoy one's self to the full; to have a season of dissipation. J. H. Newman. "When I was as young as you, I had my fling. I led a life of pleasure." D. Jerrol…

One of the crooked timbers which are scarfed together to form the lower part of the compound rib of a vessel; one of the crooked transverse timbers passing across and over the keel. Futtock plates (Naut.), plates of iron to which the dead-eyes of the topmast rigging are secured. -- Futtock shrouds, short iron shrouds…

A stick crooked like a horse's hind leg; -- used by butchers in suspending slaughtered animals. Gambrel roof (Arch.), a curb roof having the same section in all parts, with a lower steeper slope and an upper and flatter one, so that each gable is pentagonal in form.

Crooked; lame; as, a game leg. [Colloq.]

A game played with a small ball and a bat or club crooked at the lower end. He who drives the ball into each of a series of small holes in the ground and brings it into the last hole with the fewest strokes is the winner. [Scot.] Strutt.

A genus of small, crooked trees, growing in tropical America.

Turned round like a crook, or bent to and fro. Loudon.

Curved like a hawk's bill; crooked.

A Crookes tube.

projecting points of the thigh bones of cattle; -- called also hook bones. By hook or by crook, one way or other; by any means, direct or indirect. Milton. "In hope her to attain by hook or crook." Spenser. -- Off the hooks, unhinged; disturbed; disordered. [Colloq.] "In the evening, by water, to the Duke of Albemarl…