• IPA: /kɹʌtʃ/

crutch (plural crutches)

1. A device to assist in motion as a cane, especially one that provides support under the arm to reduce weight on a leg.

   He walked on crutches for a month until the cast was removed from his leg.

   • c. 1608–1609, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     I'll lean upon one crutch, and fight with the other.

2. Something that supports, often used negatively to indicate that it is not needed and causes an unhealthful dependency; a prop

   Alcohol became a crutch to help him through the long nights; eventually it killed him.

   • Rhyme is a crutch that lifts the weak alone.

3. A crotch; the area of body where the legs fork from the trunk.
4. A form of pommel for a woman's saddle, consisting of a forked rest to hold the leg of the rider.
5. (nautical) A knee, or piece of knee timber.
6. (nautical) A forked stanchion or post; a crotch.
7. (heraldry) A type of cross formed from two C-shapes joined back to back.

• French: béquille
• German: Krücke
• Italian: stampella, gruccia
• Portuguese: muleta, canadiana
• Russian: косты́ль
• Spanish: muleta

• French: soutien, support
• German: Stütze, Krücke
• Italian: stampella
• Spanish: apoyo, soporte, muleta

crutch (crutches, present participle crutching; past and past participle crutched)

1. (transitive) To support on crutches; to prop up.

   • Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse

2. (intransitive) To move on crutches.
3. (transitive) To shear the hindquarters of a sheep; to dag.
   • 2010, January 29, Emma Partridge, Stock Journal, "Richie Foster a cut above the rest" ↗

     After learning how to crutch at 13, he could dag 400 sheep in a day by the spring of 1965 and earned himself more than just a bit of pocket money.

4. (transitive) To stir with a crutch (in soap making)