crotchet

A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.

The crotchets and quavers are dancing up and down the stave like little black boys on a fence.

A sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook

A hook-shaped instrument, especially as used in obstetric surgery.

Either Doctor Denman or an old Woman would have waited—but since the horrid death-doing Crotchet has been found out, & its use permitted—Oh! many & many a Life has been flung away.

A whim or a fancy.

Thou who walkest in a vain shew, looking out with ornamental dilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life and all Death; and amblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk into crotchets, thy poor conduct into fatuous somnambulisms; [...] dost thou call that "liberty!"

He ruined himself and all that trusted in him by crotchets that he could never explain to any rational man.

A forked support; a crotch.

Their little Shed, ſcarce large enough for Two, / Seems, from the Ground increas'd, in Height and Bulk to grow. / A ſtately Temple ſhoots within the Skies, / The Crotchets of their Cot in Columns riſe: [...]

to play music in measured time

The nimblest crotcheting musician

Archaic form of crochet (“knit by looping”).