Old English

Alternative forms

• cryċċ

Noun

criċċ f ‎(nominative plural criċċe)

1. crutch, staff
   • Gird din and cricc ðín me fréfredon

     Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.

   • c. 1000 Ælfric's Metrical Lives of the Saints

     Hé mid twám criccum creáp him tó Wynceastre

     He crawled with two crutches to Winchester.

2. a bishop's crook
   • c. 800 Épinal Glossary (ref. Sweet's Oldest English Texts, p72)

     Lituus, baculum augurale in prima parte curvum, id est crycc

     A curved staff, an augur's staff curved in the first part, is a crycc

   • Quoted in The Shrine: a Collection of Occasional Papers on Dry Subjects, Thomas Oswald Cockayne (1864-1870) p.70, l.14:

     Se biscop slóh mid his cricce on ðá eorðan

     The bishop struck with his crook on the earth.

Descendants

• Middle English: crucche
  • English: crutch

References

• cricc in Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
• crycc in Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary