"crook and nanny" meaning in English

See crook and nanny in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-crook and nanny.wav Forms: crooks and nannies [plural]
Etymology: Spoonerism of nook and cranny, by association with the more common words crook and nanny. Etymology templates: {{spoonerism|en|nook and cranny}} Spoonerism of nook and cranny Head templates: {{en-noun|crooks and nannies}} crook and nanny (plural crooks and nannies)
  1. (often preceded by every) A very small place.
    Sense id: en-crook_and_nanny-en-noun-EIuxHlIA
  2. (rare, often preceded by every) Average person or people. Tags: rare Synonyms: average Joe, nook and cranny
    Sense id: en-crook_and_nanny-en-noun-UMBv4IKE Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English spoonerisms, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 1 99 Disambiguation of English spoonerisms: 3 97 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 2 98 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 2 98

Inflected forms

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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "nook and cranny"
      },
      "expansion": "Spoonerism of nook and cranny",
      "name": "spoonerism"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Spoonerism of nook and cranny, by association with the more common words crook and nanny.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "crooks and nannies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "crooks and nannies"
      },
      "expansion": "crook and nanny (plural crooks and nannies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008, Wes Goff, City and the Sea: Memories of being a Young Sailor, page 44:",
          "text": "There's a building in St. Louis called the MEPS Building where doctors probe every crook and nanny of your body to see if you're physically fit enough to join the military.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Kit St. Germain, Thirteenth Fairy, page 246:",
          "text": "Wouldn't grow straight if you put a splint on 'er. She liked the loopholes in things. The chinks, the crooks and nannies... liked to find healthy little plantlets to choke!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Ted Macey, Merry Swan, Jack the Lad RN, page 17:",
          "text": "There was sand in every crook and nanny, from truck to keel. As the emerging seamen ran out of expletives so the Kalahari may have run out of sand.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A very small place."
      ],
      "id": "en-crook_and_nanny-en-noun-EIuxHlIA",
      "qualifier": "often preceded by every",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(often preceded by every) A very small place."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "1 99",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "3 97",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English spoonerisms",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "2 98",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "2 98",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995, Gordon Gibson, Thirty million musketeers: one Canada for all Canadians:",
          "text": "For the currency of the lives of most us, the fashion in the business of the state has been to expand farther and farther into every nook and cranny, seeking the welfare of every crook and nanny.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Mervin Block, Writing broadcast news: shorter, sharper, stronger, page 10:",
          "text": "We can also start a story with the name of someone who has star quality, a person whose name is widely known—in almost every nook and cranny, by almost every crook and nanny.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 October 6, Robert Peffers, “The American Spirit”, in soc.culture.irish (Usenet):",
          "text": "The criminals could never predict if a Big Polis would be feeling his collar at any time. The beat Polis knew every nook and cranny on his beat, (he knew every crook and nanny too). No one, but no one, would dare to call a Big Polis, \"the filth\", or similar name in those days.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Average person or people."
      ],
      "id": "en-crook_and_nanny-en-noun-UMBv4IKE",
      "links": [
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ],
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          "people",
          "people"
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      "qualifier": "often preceded by every",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rare, often preceded by every) Average person or people."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "average Joe"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "2 98",
          "word": "nook and cranny"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "rare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-crook and nanny.wav",
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    }
  ],
  "word": "crook and nanny"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English spoonerisms",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
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        "2": "nook and cranny"
      },
      "expansion": "Spoonerism of nook and cranny",
      "name": "spoonerism"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Spoonerism of nook and cranny, by association with the more common words crook and nanny.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "crooks and nannies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "crooks and nannies"
      },
      "expansion": "crook and nanny (plural crooks and nannies)",
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    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008, Wes Goff, City and the Sea: Memories of being a Young Sailor, page 44:",
          "text": "There's a building in St. Louis called the MEPS Building where doctors probe every crook and nanny of your body to see if you're physically fit enough to join the military.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Kit St. Germain, Thirteenth Fairy, page 246:",
          "text": "Wouldn't grow straight if you put a splint on 'er. She liked the loopholes in things. The chinks, the crooks and nannies... liked to find healthy little plantlets to choke!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Ted Macey, Merry Swan, Jack the Lad RN, page 17:",
          "text": "There was sand in every crook and nanny, from truck to keel. As the emerging seamen ran out of expletives so the Kalahari may have run out of sand.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A very small place."
      ],
      "qualifier": "often preceded by every",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(often preceded by every) A very small place."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with rare senses",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995, Gordon Gibson, Thirty million musketeers: one Canada for all Canadians:",
          "text": "For the currency of the lives of most us, the fashion in the business of the state has been to expand farther and farther into every nook and cranny, seeking the welfare of every crook and nanny.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Mervin Block, Writing broadcast news: shorter, sharper, stronger, page 10:",
          "text": "We can also start a story with the name of someone who has star quality, a person whose name is widely known—in almost every nook and cranny, by almost every crook and nanny.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 October 6, Robert Peffers, “The American Spirit”, in soc.culture.irish (Usenet):",
          "text": "The criminals could never predict if a Big Polis would be feeling his collar at any time. The beat Polis knew every nook and cranny on his beat, (he knew every crook and nanny too). No one, but no one, would dare to call a Big Polis, \"the filth\", or similar name in those days.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "Average person or people."
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          "person"
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          "people"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "often preceded by every",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rare, often preceded by every) Average person or people."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "average Joe"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "rare"
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/1c/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-crook_and_nanny.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-crook_and_nanny.wav.mp3",
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    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "nook and cranny"
    }
  ],
  "word": "crook and nanny"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.