crotchet

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

• noun An odd, whimsical, or stubborn notion.
• noun A small hook or hooklike structure.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To play or sing in quick rhythm.
• noun In zoology, one of the slightly curved and notched bristles or chætæ common among Oligochæta, and serving probably as locomotor organs.
• noun Same as crocket.
• noun A little hook; a hook.
• noun Specifically In anatomy, the hooked anterior end of the superior occipitotemporal cerebral convolution.
• noun In entomology, a little hook-like organ or process, generally one of a series; specifically, one of the minute horny hooks on the prolegs of many caterpillars.
• noun One of the pair of marks, [], used in writing and printing, now more commonly called brackets. See bracket, n., 4.
• noun A curved surgical instrument with a sharp hook, used to extract the fetus in the operation of embryotomy.
• noun In music, a note equal in length to half a minim or one fourth of a semibreve; a quarter note. See note.
• noun A piece of wood resembling a fork, used as a support in building.
• noun Milit., a peculiar arrangement of troops, in which they are drawn up in a line nearly perpendicular to the line of battle.
• noun In fortification, an indentation in the glacis of the covered way at a point where a traverse is placed.
• noun A singular opinion, especially one held by a person who has no special competency to form a correct opinion; an unusual and whimsical notion concerning a matter of fact or principle of action; a perverse or odd conceit.

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

• intransitive verb obsolete To play music in measured time.
• noun A forked support; a crotch.
• noun (Mus.) A time note, with a stem, having one fourth the value of a semibreve, one half that of a minim, and twice that of a quaver; a quarter note.
• noun (Fort.) An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.
• noun (Mil.) The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.
• noun (Print.) A bracket. See Bracket.
• noun (Med.) An instrument of a hooked form, used in certain cases in the extraction of a fetus.
• noun A perverse fancy; a whim which takes possession of the mind; a conceit.

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

• noun music A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.
• noun A sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook (obsolete except in crochet hook).
• noun archaic a whim or a fancy
• verb to make needlework by looping thread with a hooked needle
• verb obsolete to play music in measured time

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

• noun a strange attitude or habit
• noun a musical note having the time value of a quarter of a whole note
• noun a sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook
• noun a small tool or hooklike implement