crabbed

comparative more crabbed · superlative most crabbed

1. Bad-tempered or cantankerous.

   […]O, she is / Ten times more gentle than her father's crabb'd, / And he's composed of harshness.

   1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]

2. Cramped, bent.

   A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee, Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey As the long moss upon the apple-tree; […]

   c. 1800, Robert Southey, Winter

3. Crowded together and difficult to read.
4. aeronauticsPointed at an angle to the runway during approach and landing to compensate for a crosswind.

   Unlike most aircraft, the B-52's fully-steerable landing gear allows it to land crabbed and stay crabbed throughout rollout without destroying its tires.

5. aeronauticsPerformed with one's aircraft pointed at an angle to the runway to compensate for a crosswind; performed with nonzero crab.

   The Ercoupe can't be cross-controlled, so it has to make a crabbed approach in a crosswind rather than using the sideslip technique.

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of crab