Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The angle or region of the angle formed by the junction of two parts or members, such as two legs or branches.
  • noun The area on a pair of pants, underpants, or shorts that is between the legs.
  • noun The piece of material used to construct this area of an item of clothing.
  • noun The fork of a pole or other support.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In logging, to cut notches on opposite sides of (a log) near the end, into which dogs are fastened.
  • noun A fork or forking; a point or line of divergence or parting, as of two legs or branches: as, the crotch of a tree (the point of separation of the main stem into two parts); a piece of timber with a crotch.
  • noun A shepherd's crook.
  • noun Nautical, same as crutch, 3 .
  • noun In billiards, a space, generally 4½ inches square, at a corner of the table.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The angle formed by the parting of two legs or branches; a fork; the point where a trunk divides.
  • noun (Naut.) A stanchion or post of wood or iron, with two arms for supporting a boom, spare yards, etc.; -- called also crane and crutch.
  • noun (Billiards) In the three-ball carom game, a small space at each corner of the table. See Crotched, below.
  • transitive verb To provide with a crotch; to give the form of a crotch to.
  • transitive verb (Logging), Western, U. S. To notch (a log) on opposite sides to provide a grip for the dogs in hauling.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The area where something forks or branches, a ramification takes place.
  • noun The (ventral) area of a person’s body where the legs fork from the trunk
  • noun slang, euphemistic Either the male or female genitalia.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the region of the angle formed by the junction of two branches
  • noun external sex organ
  • noun the angle formed by the inner sides of the legs where they join the human trunk

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly alteration of crutch and partly from Middle English croche, crook, crosier (from Old French croche, hook, shepherd's crook, feminine of croc, hook; see crochet).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French croche ("shepherd's crook")

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word crotch.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Song quotation on football.

    September 16, 2008