Crock

from WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)

crock
    n 1: a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or
         principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments
         and ink [syn: {carbon black}, {lampblack}, {soot}, {smut},
         {crock}]
    2: nonsense; foolish talk; "that's a crock"
    3: an earthen jar (made of baked clay) [syn: {crock},
       {earthenware jar}]
    v 1: release color when rubbed, of badly dyed fabric
    2: soil with or as with crock

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\, n.
   1. a person who is worn out with age or illness.
      [PJC]

   2. an old person who complains frequently about illness,
      especially imaginary ailments.
      [PJC]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

crock \crock\, n.
   nonsense; balderdash; humbug; -- usually used in the phrase a
   crock. [slang]
   [PJC]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Crocked} (kr[o^]kt); p. pr.
   & vb. n. {Crocking}.]
   To soil by contact, as with soot, or with the coloring matter
   of badly dyed cloth.
   [1913 Webster]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\, v. i.
   To give off crock or smut.
   [1913 Webster]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\, v. t.
   To lay up in a crock; as, to crock butter. --Halliwell.
   [1913 Webster]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\ (kr[o^]k), n. [Cf. W. croeg cover, Scot. crochit
   covered.]
   The loose black particles collected from combustion, as on
   pots and kettles, or in a chimney; soot; smut; also, coloring
   matter which rubs off from cloth.
   [1913 Webster]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\, n.
   A low stool. "I . . . seated her upon a little crock."
   --Tatler.
   [1913 Webster]

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Crock \Crock\ (kr[o^]k), n. [AS. croc, croca, crog, croh; akin
   to D. kruik, G. krug, Icel. krukka, Dan. krukke, Sw. kruka;
   but cf. W. crwc bucket, pail, crochan pot, cregen earthen
   vessel, jar. Cf. {Cruet}.]
   Any piece of crockery, especially of coarse earthenware; an
   earthen pot or pitcher.
   [1913 Webster]

         Like foolish flies about an honey crock. --Spenser.
   [1913 Webster]

from Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

crock
 n.

   [from the American scatologism crock of shit]

   1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made
   cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes
   without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example,
   Unix make(1), which returns code 139 for a process that dies due to
   {segfault}).

   2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite prone to
   failure if disturbed in the least. For example, a too-clever
   programmer might write an assembler which mapped instruction mnemonics
   to numeric opcodes algorithmically, a trick which depends far too
   intimately on the particular bit patterns of the opcodes. (For another
   example of programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see
   The Story of Mel' in Appendix A.) Many crocks have a tightly woven,
   almost completely unmodifiable structure. See {kluge}, {brittle}. The
   adjectives crockish and crocky, and the nouns crockishness and
   crockitude, are also used.

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

crock

   [American scatologism "crock of shit"] 1. An awkward feature
   or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner.  For
   example, using small integers to represent error codes without
   the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example,
   Unix "make(1)", which returns code 139 for a process that dies
   due to {segfault}).

   2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite prone
   to failure if disturbed in the least.  For example, a
   too-clever programmer might write an assembler which mapped
   {instruction mnemonics} to numeric {opcodes}
   {algorithm}ically, a trick which depends far too intimately on
   the particular bit patterns of the opcodes.  (For another
   example of programming with a dependence on actual opcode
   values, see {The Story of Mel}.)  Many crocks have a tightly
   woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure.  See {kluge},
   {brittle}.  The adjectives "crockish" and "crocky", and the
   nouns "crockishness" and "crockitude", are also used.

   [{Jargon File}]

from Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

39 Moby Thesaurus words for "crock":
      adobe, balker, balky horse, biscuit, bisque, bowl, brick, cement,
      ceramic ware, ceramics, china, crockery, crowbait, dog, enamelware,
      firebrick, garron, glass, goat, hack, jade, jug, jughead, nag,
      plug, porcelain, pot, pottery, refractory, roarer, rogue,
      rosinante, scalawag, stiff, tile, tiling, urn, vase, whistler