crankle

crank +‎ -le. Coined by Michael Drayton in 1596. According to the Poly-Olbion project, "Drayton probably derived ‘crankling’ from ‘crank’, a word which had its first recorded usage in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (1594) where it describes a hare which ‘crankes and crosses with a thousand doubles’."

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹæŋkəl/

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• Rhymes: -æŋkəl

crankle (plural crankles)

1. A bend, twist or crinkle.

• crinkle-crankle

crankle (third-person singular simple present crankles, present participle crankling, simple past and past participle crankled)

1. To bend, turn, or wind.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 7 p. 105:

     Meander, who is said so intricate to bee,
     Hath not so many turnes, nor crankling nookes as shee.

   • 1603, Michael Drayton, The Barons' Wars:

     Along the crankling path.

2. To break into bends, turns, or angles; to crinkle.
   • 1708, John Philips, Cyder:

     Old Vaga's stream […] drew her humid train aslope, / Crankling her banks.

• Lackner, clanker