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Crutch vs Crux - What's the difference?

crutch | crux |

As a noun crutch

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

As a verb crutch

is to support on crutches; to prop up.

As a proper noun crux is

(constellation) a distinctive winter constellation of the southern sky, shaped like a cross it appears in the flags of several countries in oceania.

crutch

English

(wikipedia crutch)

Noun

(crutches)
  • 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.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I'll lean upon one crutch , and fight with the other.
  • 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.
  • * H. Smith
    • Rhyme is a crutch that lifts the weak alone.
  • A crotch; the area of body where the legs fork from the trunk.
  • A form of pommel for a woman's saddle, consisting of a forked rest to hold the leg of the rider.
  • (nautical) A knee, or piece of knee timber.
  • (nautical) A forked stanchion or post; a crotch.

    • Verb

  • To support on crutches; to prop up.
  • * Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse. — Dryden.
  • To shear the hindquarters of a sheep; to dag.
  • * 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.'' — 2010 January 29, Emma Partridge, Stock Journal, ''Richie Foster a cut above the rest ,

    • crux

    English

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • The basic, central, or essential point or feature.
    • The crux of her argument was that the roadways needed repair before anything else could be accomplished.
  • The critical or transitional moment or issue, a turning point.
  • * 1993 , Laurence M. Porter, "Real Dreams, Literary Dreams, and the Fantastic in Literature", pages 32-47 in'' Carol Schreier Rupprecht (ed.) ''The Dream and the Text: Essays on Literature and Language .
    • The mad certitude of the ogre, Abel Tiffauges, that he stands at the crux of history and that he will be able to raise Prussia "to a higher power" (p. 180), contrasts sharply with the anxiety and doubt attendant upon most modern literary dreams.
  • A puzzle or difficulty.
    • The perpetual crux of New Testament chronologists. — Strauss.
  • The hardest point of a climb.
  • * 1973 , Pat Armstrong, "Klondike Fever: Seventy Years Too Late", in Backpacker , Autumn 1973, page 84:
    • The final half-mile was the crux of the climb.
  • * 2004 , Craig Luebben, Rock Climbing: Mastering Basic Skills , The Mountaineers Books, ISBN 9780898867435, page 179:
    • Most pitches have a distinct crux', or tough spot; some have multiple '''cruxes'''. ¶ Climb efficiently on the "cruiser" sections to stay fresh for the ' cruxes .
  • * 2009 , R. J. Secor, The High Sierra: Peaks, Passes, and Trails , Third Edition, The Mountaineers Books, ISBN 9780898869712, page 51:
    • Continue climbing the groove; the crux is passing some vegetation on the second pitch.
  • (heraldiccharge) A cross on a coat of arms.

    • Related terms

    * cross * crucial