croup

• IPA^(key): /kɹuːp/
• Rhymes: -uːp

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 group, crop.

croup (plural croups)

1. The top of the rump of a horse or other quadruped.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, / So light to the saddle before her he sprung.

   • 1835, Charles Frederick Partington, The British cyclopædia of natural history

     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.

From Scots croup, croop (“the croup”), from Scots croup, crowp, croop (“to croak, speak hoarsely, murmur, complain”), from Old Scots crowp, crope, croap (“to call loudly, croak”), alteration of rowp, roup, roip, rope (“to cry, cry hoarsely, roop”), from Middle English roupen, ropen, from Old English hrōpan (“to shout, proclaim; cry out, scream, howl”), from Proto-Germanic *hrōpaną (“to shout”), from Proto-Indo-European *ker-, *kor- (“to caw, crow”). More at roop.

croup (third-person singular simple present croups, present participle crouping, simple past and past participle crouped)

1. (obsolete outside dialectal) To croak, make a hoarse noise.

croup (uncountable)

1. (pathology) An infectious illness of the larynx, especially in young children, causing respiratory difficulty.

• There are two forms of croup, one caused by the diphtheria bacterium which may be deadly if not cured, and the other, less severe, caused by viruses. The viral form was formerly called pseudocroup. Vaccines and antibiotics have nearly eradicated the diphtheritic form from developed countries, and now the term "croup" chiefly refers to the viral form.

• croupous
• croupy

• cupro, cupro-