Etymology

crab

C3R1A1B3

Today it means: Any crustacean of the infraorder Brachyura, having five pairs of legs, the foremost of which are in the form of claws, and a carapace. Full definition →

Middle English crabbe ← Old English crabba ← Proto-West Germanic *krabbō
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crab · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*grobʰeh₂yéti“to scratch”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*krabbô
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*krabbō
  4. Old English · inherited fromcrabba“crab; crayfish; cancer”
  5. Middle English · inherited fromcrabbe
  6. English todaycrab

From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“to scratch”), a metathesised o-grade of *gerbʰ- (“to carve, scratch”). More at carve. Cognates See also Dutch krab, Low German Krabb, Danish krabbe, Swedish krabba. Further cognates with frequentative-infix are Saterland Frisian krabbelje (“to creep, crawl”), Dutch krabbelen (“to scratch”) and German krabbeln (“to crawl”). Possibly related to English creep and Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”) etc. Other origins have also been suggested, see Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos) (regarding the possibility of a substrate origin) and Persian خرچنگ (regarding possible ideophonic origin); compare also Old Armenian քարբ (kʻarb), German Krebs.

crab · noun, verb2

  1. Middle English · inherited fromcrabbe“wild apple”
  2. English todaycrab

From Middle English crabbe (“wild apple”), of Germanic origin, plausibly from North Germanic, cognate with Swedish dialect skrabba (“sour apple, apple cart”).

crab · noun3

Possibly a corruption of the genus name Carapa

crab · noun4

From carabiner.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.