▪ I. crouched, ppl. a.
(ˈkraʊtʃt, -ɪd)
[f. crouch v.1 + -ed.]
a. Bowed, bent together.
| 1848 J. A. Carlyle tr. Dante's Inferno xiv, Sitting all crouched up. 1865 Kingsley Herew. xix. (1866) 245 She sat crouched together. |
b. spec. in Archæol. Of a burial: with the body in a crouching posture, usu. on its side.
| [1898 Pitt-Rivers Excav. Cranborne Chase IV. 82 On the near side of the collection of interments are seen Nos. 1 and 2 crouched on the right side.] 1915 H. R. Hall ægean Archæol. vi. 160 Primitive Hockergräber (crouched burials) have also been found at Tiryns. 1925 A. Keith Antiquity of Man (ed. 2) II. iii. 48 This ‘crouched’ burial had been made by the people who lived on the old land surface and worked the Neolithic flints. 1954 S. Piggott Neolithic Cultures ii. 49 A second barrow..contained a crouched skeleton. |
▪ II. crouched
earlier form of crutched (Friars).