"turn someone's crank" meaning in English

See turn someone's crank in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-turn someone's crank.ogg [Australia] Forms: turns someone's crank [present, singular, third-person], turning someone's crank [participle, present], turned someone's crank [participle, past], turned someone's crank [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} turn someone's crank (third-person singular simple present turns someone's crank, present participle turning someone's crank, simple past and past participle turned someone's crank)
  1. (informal) To arouse a person's interest or passion; to excite someone. Tags: informal Categories (topical): Emotions Synonyms: float someone's boat

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for turn someone's crank meaning in English (3.2kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "turns someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "turning someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "turned someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "turned someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "turn someone's crank (third-person singular simple present turns someone's crank, present participle turning someone's crank, simple past and past participle turned someone's crank)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
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          "parents": [
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        },
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Emotions",
          "orig": "en:Emotions",
          "parents": [
            "Mind",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000 March 26, George Vecsey, “Baseball: Mets and Cubs Are Grateful McGwire Said No to Tokyo”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "McGwire had said that international competition did not \"turn my crank,\" but the players on the dais today seemed positively excited about the trip.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 May 25, “The Times Bomb”, in Newsweek, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "But it was journalism that turned his crank. He loved knowing the secrets and the gossip; he loved trafficking in information.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 September 4, Jack Welch, Suzy Welch, “From Hero To Zero”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "[A]bsolutely nothing beats pursuing the path that truly fascinates your brain, engages your energy, and touches your soul. Whatever you do, do what turns your crank.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 May 19, John Ortved, “Guys Confess Their Celebrity Crushes: Cannes Edition”, in www.glamour.com, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "Yet if you ask guys which Hollywood stars most turn their crank, you'd be surprised who their answers might be, and why.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To arouse a person's interest or passion; to excite someone."
      ],
      "id": "en-turn_someone's_crank-en-verb-mtqvzi2W",
      "links": [
        [
          "arouse",
          "arouse"
        ],
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ],
        [
          "passion",
          "passion"
        ],
        [
          "excite",
          "excite"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) To arouse a person's interest or passion; to excite someone."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "float someone's boat"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-turn someone's crank.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f5/En-au-turn_someone%27s_crank.ogg/En-au-turn_someone%27s_crank.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/En-au-turn_someone%27s_crank.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "turn someone's crank"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "turns someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "turning someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "turned someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "turned someone's crank",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "turn someone's crank (third-person singular simple present turns someone's crank, present participle turning someone's crank, simple past and past participle turned someone's crank)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "en:Emotions"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000 March 26, George Vecsey, “Baseball: Mets and Cubs Are Grateful McGwire Said No to Tokyo”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "McGwire had said that international competition did not \"turn my crank,\" but the players on the dais today seemed positively excited about the trip.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 May 25, “The Times Bomb”, in Newsweek, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "But it was journalism that turned his crank. He loved knowing the secrets and the gossip; he loved trafficking in information.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 September 4, Jack Welch, Suzy Welch, “From Hero To Zero”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "[A]bsolutely nothing beats pursuing the path that truly fascinates your brain, engages your energy, and touches your soul. Whatever you do, do what turns your crank.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 May 19, John Ortved, “Guys Confess Their Celebrity Crushes: Cannes Edition”, in www.glamour.com, retrieved 2011-07-16",
          "text": "Yet if you ask guys which Hollywood stars most turn their crank, you'd be surprised who their answers might be, and why.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To arouse a person's interest or passion; to excite someone."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "arouse",
          "arouse"
        ],
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ],
        [
          "passion",
          "passion"
        ],
        [
          "excite",
          "excite"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) To arouse a person's interest or passion; to excite someone."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-turn someone's crank.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f5/En-au-turn_someone%27s_crank.ogg/En-au-turn_someone%27s_crank.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/En-au-turn_someone%27s_crank.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "float someone's boat"
    }
  ],
  "word": "turn someone's crank"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). 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.