Croup Meaning
/kɹuːp/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe top of the rump of a horse or other quadruped.
verbTo croak, make a hoarse noise.
Sentence Examples
The child's croup made breathing difficult.
Croup symptoms include a barking cough.
The young child was diagnosed with croup after coughing loudly.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The toddler's harsh barking cough was diagnosed as ____ by the pediatrician.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The child's ____ made breathing difficult.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English croupe, from Old French croupe (“rump, body”), from Old Norse kroppr (“body, trunk, mass”), from Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“body, mass, heap, collection, crop”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewb- (“to curve, bend, crawl”). More at crupper, doublet of croupe, group, and crop.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, / So light to the saddle before her he sprung."
— 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC:
"The guib [a kind of antelope] is of the mean dimensions, or four feet and a half in total length, and two and a half high at the shoulders, but rather higher at the croup."
— 1835, Charles Frederick Partington, The British cyclopædia of natural history:
"Curved like a stallion's croup, from dusk to dawn, / And drums upon it with his heels, whereby / Is bred the neighing thunder in the hills."
— 1892, Rudyard Kipling, “The Sacrifice of Er-Heb”, in Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, 3rd edition, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 146:
"Yes; I've nursed five children and buried three; and the one I loved the best of all, and tended through croup, and teething, and measles, and hooping-cough, and brought up with foreign masters, regardless of expense, […]."
— 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
"Percy Northumberland Driscoll[…]had had children around his hearthstone; but they were attacked in detail by measles, croup and scarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective antediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty."
— 1897, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “[Pudd’nhead Wilson] Chapter”, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson: And the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 22:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The toddler's harsh barking cough was diagnosed as ____ by the pediatrician.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The child's ____ made breathing difficult.