▪ I. crut1 Coal-mining.
A roadway driven from the shaft across strata of rock, shale, or other ‘waste’, to reach a seam of coal. Chiefly used in the Staffordshire coal-field.
| 1665 D. Dudley Metallum Martis (1854) 27 The Colliers getting the nethermost part of the Coles first..when they have wrought the Crutes or Staules, (as some Colliers call them) as broad and as far in under the ground, as they think fit [etc.]. 1884 Pall Mall G. 26 Aug. 10/1 The defendant was engaged..in the driving of what is technically known as the crut, and was seen to take off the top of his safety lamp and light his pipe. |
▪ II. crut2
[? ad. F. croûte crust.]
The rough part of oak bark.
| 1847 in Craig and mod. Dicts. |
▪ III. crut3 U.S. slang.
(krʌt)
= crud 2 a (in quot. 1940 = excrement). So ˈcrutting a., = cruddy a. 2.
| 1925 Hemingway In our Time (ed. 2) 66 That son of a crutting brakeman. 1937 ― To have & have Not iii. vii. 130 You miserable little crut. 1940 ― For whom Bell Tolls xi. 150 We can eat goat crut in Gredos. 1955 J. P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1957) viii. 63 Two years in Ireland, shrunken teat on the chest of the cold Atlantic. Land of crut. |
▪ IV. crut
var. of croot, a dwarf.