Meaning of Crotchet | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.
2. A sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook
   obsolete
3. A hook-shaped instrument, especially as used in obstetric surgery.
   historical
4. A whim or a fancy.
   archaic
5. A forked support; a crotch.
6. An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.
   historical
7. The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.
8. A square bracket.

Equivalents

Examples

“The crotchets and quavers are dancing up and down the stave like little black boys on a fence.”

“Either Doctor Denman or an old Woman would have waited—but since the horrid death-doing Crotchet has been found out, & its use permitted—Oh! many & many a Life has been flung away.”

“Thou who walkest in a vain shew, looking out with ornamental dilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life and all Death; and amblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk into crotchets, thy poor conduct into fatuous somnambulisms; [...] dost thou call that "liberty!"”

“He ruined himself and all that trusted in him by crotchets that he could never explain to any rational man.”

“Their little Shed, ſcarce large enough for Two, / Seems, from the Ground increas'd, in Height and Bulk to grow. / A ſtately Temple ſhoots within the Skies, / The Crotchets of their Cot in Columns riſe: [...]”

CEFR level