crook: [12] A crook ‘criminal’ is almost literally a ‘bent’ person. The underlying meaning of the word is ‘bend, curve, hook’, as can be seen in other applications such as ‘shepherd’s staff with a crooked end’, and particularly in the derivative crooked [13]. Crook was borrowed into English from Old Norse krókr ‘hook, corner’. Old French also acquired the Old Norse word, as croc, and passed it on to English in crochet, croquet, crotchet, and encroach; and the derived verbs crocher and crochier produced respectively a new noun croche ‘hook’, source of English crotch [16], and the English verb crouch [14].
Moreover, Old French also had croce, resulting from an earlier borrowing of the word’s ultimate West and North Germanic base *krukintroduced into Vulgar Latin as *croccus, and this was eventually to form the basis of English crosier [14] and perhaps lacrosse [18]. => croquet, crosier, crotch, crotchet, crouch, encroach, lacrosse
crook (n.)
early 13c., "hook-shaped instrument or weapon," from Old Norse krokr "hook, corner," cognate with Old High German kracho "hooked tool," of obscure origin but perhaps related to a widespread group of Germanic kr- words meaning "bent, hooked." Meaning "swindler" is American English, 1879, from crooked in figurative sense of "dishonest" (1708). Crook "dishonest trick" was in Middle English.
