Cruckle

//ˈkɹʊk(ə)l// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To stumble after inverting or everting one's foot; to roll (but not necessarily sprain) one's ankle. dialectal, intransitive

    "The resident, who does not want to be named, was walking along the street on Sunday (1 November) morning when she suddenly cruckled over on her ankle and fell on her hands, resulting in cuts and bruises."

Example

More examples

"The resident, who does not want to be named, was walking along the street on Sunday (1 November) morning when she suddenly cruckled over on her ankle and fell on her hands, resulting in cuts and bruises."

Etymology

From earlier crookle (“to bend, twist, make crooked”), equivalent to crook (“to bend”) + -le (frequentative suffix). Compare Dutch kreukelen, Low German krökeln.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.