Definitions

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

  • noun A support used by an injured or disabled person, often in pairs, as an aid to walking, having a vertical shaft that is sometimes forked, a horizontal grip for the hand, and a crosspiece that is positioned under the armpit or a cuff that wraps around the forearm.
  • noun Something on which one depends, often excessively.
  • noun A forked support or part.
  • noun A forked leg rest on a sidesaddle.
  • noun Archaic The crotch of a person or animal.
  • intransitive verb To move using a crutch or crutches.
  • intransitive verb To support on a crutch or crutches.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To support on crutches; prop or sustain.
  • In soap-making, to stir forcibly with a crutch. See crutch, n., 3 .
  • noun A cross. See cross.
  • In leather manufacturing, to work with a crutch.
  • noun A support for the lame in walking, consisting of a staff of the proper length, with a crosspiece at one end so shaped as to fit easily under the armpit. The upper part of the staff is now commonly divided lengthwise into two parts, separated by an inserted piece used as a handle.
  • noun Hence Figuratively, old age.
  • noun Any fixture or mechanical device resembling a crutch or the head of a crutch.
  • noun A rack: as, a bacon-crutch.

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

  • noun A staff with a crosspiece at the head, to be placed under the arm or shoulder, to support the lame or infirm in walking.
  • noun A form of pommel for a woman's saddle, consisting of a forked rest to hold the leg of the rider.
  • noun A knee, or piece of knee timber.
  • noun A forked stanchion or post; a crotch. See Crotch.
  • transitive verb rare To support on crutches; to prop up.

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

  • noun A device to assist in motion as a cane, especially one that provides support under the arm to reduce weight on a leg.
  • noun Something that supports, often used negatively to indicate that it is not needed and causes an unhealthful dependency; a prop
  • noun A crotch; the area of body where the legs fork from the trunk.
  • verb transitive To support on crutches; to prop up.
  • verb transitive To shear the hindquarters of a sheep; to dag.

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

  • noun a wooden or metal staff that fits under the armpit and reaches to the ground; used by disabled person while walking
  • noun anything that serves as an expedient

Etymologies

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

[Middle English crucche, from Old English crycc.]

Support

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Examples

  • Gutter crutch (‘arthritis crutch’) For children who, due to elbow pain or stiffness, cannot use straight-arm crutches.

    Chapter 7 1999

  • The roughly $4.6 billion, three-year tax hike was then billed as a necessary but short-term crutch as the state hobbled through a recession.

    Tax Changes Pose Problem For the GOP Jacob Gershman 2011

  • Writing that suggests that the Bush crutch is about to dissolve?

    McCain 'pleasantly surprised' by Iraqi leader 2008

  • The answer is not sleep medication, or psychotropic medication, as the medications themselves are toxic to the organs, have side-effects, are often addictive and may be a short-term crutch that masks or worsens a long-term health problem.

    Anne Dunev: What Is Stopping You From Getting A Good Night's Sleep? 2010

  • Such orders harm the morale of our fighting men and women and are nothing more than a short-term crutch for maintaining force levels.

    Bobby Muller: Support the Stop-loss Compensation Act 2008

  • One of the funniest segments for me was when Mark Andrada (pictured in the first photo) interpreted the word crutch from the audience.

    blogTO 2009

  • The crutch is a method of wrapping the meat with aluminum foil and adding a splash of liquid like apple juice or beer.

    Physicist Cracks BBQ Mystery 2011

  • The trope (or maybe it's better defined as a crutch) is that people can spend all day with the alter ego of the superhero, talking to him/her, and somehow not recognize their mannerisms and/or voice behind the mask ten minutes later when the hero comes to their rescue.

    Day in the Life of an Idiot lyda222 2009

  • My crutch has been my 2yr old running me to exhaustion and then if I'm still up but can't do anything useful I make a super super hot bath get a fiction usually a historical romance and read until I start skipping chapters or pages and then go crawl in bed.

    A Society of Chronic Insomniacs - SpouseBUZZ 2008

  • Could this create some sort of a crutch, which is very necessary, with the socialist world?

    CASTRO 15 SEP COMMENTS ON LATIN AMERICAN DEBT 1985

Comments

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  • Got married in a rush to save a kid from being deported

    Now she's in love

    I was so touched, I was moved to kick the crutches

    From my crippled friend

    She was not impressed cause I cured her on the Sabbath

    So I went to confess

    When she saw the funny side, we introduced my child bride

    To whisky and gin.

    (The state I am in, by Belle and Sebastian)

    December 26, 2008

  • "as a result of an education which tended to regard religion at best as a moral crutch and at worst as a dangerous delusion."

    Source: Hollywood Actress Emilie Francois Convert to Islam

    January 22, 2018