Crutches

How to spell crutches

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce crutches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does crutches mean?

1. nounA pair of supports placed under the arms or held in the hands to help someone walk while injured.
2. nounThings relied on too heavily for emotional or practical support.

Crutches in a sentence

• After the surgery she moved around the flat on crutches for six weeks.

• He used late-night snacks and television as emotional crutches during the stressful month.

• The broken ankle meant he needed crutches to get to the office.

• The manager warned that constant reminders had become crutches the team could no longer do without.

Where does crutches come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of crutch, which descends from the Old English crycc, meaning a staff or a forked stick used to lean on. That word belongs to a wider Germanic family that includes the Old High German krucka and the modern German Krucke, all carrying the idea of a bent or hooked prop. The same root is cousin to the word crook, the curved shepherd's staff, which explains why a crutch was originally any supporting stick rather than the underarm aid we picture today. By the medieval period the word had narrowed to the wooden support tucked under the arm of someone unable to walk freely, and it later gained the figurative sense of anything leaned on too heavily. The tch spelling in the middle is the usual English way of writing the soft ch sound after a short vowel, the same pattern seen in match and clutch.

How the word is built

• crutch (Old English crycc: a staff or support)
• -es (plural suffix)