n. A popular name for all the stalk-eyed, ten-footed, and short-tailed or soft-tailed crustaceans constituting the subclass Podophthalmia, order Decapoda, and suborders Brachyura and Anomura: distinguished from lobsters, shrimps, prawns, crawfish, and other long-tailed or macrurous crustaceans, by shortness of body, the abdomen or so-called tail being reduced and folded under the thorax and constituting the apron, or otherwise modified. See cut under Brachyura.n. Some crustacean likened to or mistaken for a crab: as, the glass-crabs; the king-crabs. See the compounds.n. A crab-louse.n. Cancer, a constellation and sign of the zodiac. See Cancern. An arch.n. plural The lowest cast at hazard.n. A name of various machines and mechanical contrivances.n. Among professional oarsmen, to sink the oar-blade so deeply in the water that it cannot he lifted easily, and hence tends to throw the rower out of the boat.To fish for or catch crabs: as, to go crabbing.Figuratively, to act like a crab in crawling backward; back out; “crawfish”: as, he tried to crab out of it.n. A small, tart, and somewhat astringent apple, of which there are several varieties, cultivated chiefly for ornament and to be made into preserves, jelly, etc.; the crab-apple.n. The tree producing the fruit.n. A walking-stick or club made of the wood of the crab-apple; a crabstick.To irritate; fret; vex; provoke; make peevish, cross, sour, or bitter, as a person or his disposition; make crabbed.To break or bruise.To be peevish or cross.In falconry, to seize each other when fighting: said of hawks.n. A crabbed, sour-tempered, peevish, morose person.Sour; rough; harsh to the taste.n. n. Iu Australia, the marine crustacean, Scylla serrata; also, Telphusa transversa, a crustacean found in fresh water.n. plural Same as crabyaws.n. A cliff-crab, especially Grapsus pictus.n. To ‘pull to pieces’; criticize or find fault with; hence, to hinder, spoil or defeat by adverse criticism of trivial details.