crook /(kro͝ok)/

crook

n.
  1. A bend, turn, or curve; curvature; flexure.
    Through lanes, and crooks, and darkness.
    — Phaer.
  2. Any implement having a bent or crooked end.
    He left his crook, he left his flocks.
  3. A pothook.
  4. An artifice; trick; tricky device; subterfuge.
    For all yuor brags, hooks, and crooks.
    — Cranmer.
  5. A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key. (Mus.)
  6. A person given to fraudulent practices; an accomplice of thieves, forgers, etc. [Cant, U.S.]

Phrases & Compounds
By hook or by crook
in some way or other; by fair means or foul.

Crook

v. t.

imp. & p. p. Crooked; p. pr. & vb. n. Crooking

  1. To turn from a straight line; to bend; to curve.
    Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee.
  2. To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist. [Archaic]
    There is no one thing that crooks youth more than such unlawfull games.
    — Ascham.
    What soever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends.

Crook

v. i.
  1. To bend; to curve; to wind; to have a curvature.
    Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards.