Crotchet

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. A forked support; a crotch. The crotchets of their cot in columns rise. Dryden.

2. A time note, with a stem, having one fourth the value of a semibreve, one half that of a minim, and twice that of a quaver; a quarter note.

3. An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.

4. The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle.

5. A bracket. See Bracket.

6. An instrument of a hooked form, used in certain cases in the extraction of a fetus. Dunglison.

7. A perverse fancy; a whim which takes possession of the mind; a conceit. He ruined himself and all that trusted in him by crotchets that he could never explain to any rational man. De Quincey.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To play music in measured time. [Obs.] Donne.