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Glite Dictionary
🧗 A tough climber 📞 A prank caller 🔧 A handle turner
cranker

cranker

9.9
A person who makes annoying or threatening phone calls to upset others
  • noun
  • /ˈkreɪŋkər/
  • NSFW
translation icon : acosador
  • The police warned residents after a persistent cranker made several threatening calls overnight.

Examples

  • Authorities are trying to identify the cranker responsible for the series of obscene phone calls.

  • She was annoyed by a cranker who kept calling her late at night.

  • The police received complaints about a cranker in the neighborhood.

  • Don't be a cranker and ruin the fun!

  • The police warned residents after a persistent cranker made several threatening calls overnight.

  • Authorities are trying to identify the cranker responsible for the series of obscene phone calls.

  • She was annoyed by a cranker who kept calling her late at night.

Synonyms

pest
vscranker
  • Offensive
27 2.1

A person who keeps bothering others

often uses obscene or threatening phone calls to annoy
harasser
vscranker
11 6.3

A person who repeatedly bothers, threatens, or scares others

uses obscene or threatening phone calls to harass specifically
baiter
vscranker
  • Slang
4 8.1

A person who tries to annoy others online or in conversation

targets others via obscene or threatening phone calls
botherer
vscranker
1 6.5

A person who annoys others by repeating small actions

typically does so using obscene or threatening phone calls
pesterer
vscranker
6.1

A person who annoys others by asking too many questions or interrupting them

does this by making obscene or threatening phone calls
badgerer
vscranker
8.9

A person who keeps asking questions to annoy someone and will not stop

instead targets people by obscene or threatening phone calls

Surface Forms

cranker singular
crankers plural

Morphology

cranker = crank (opaque) = crank + er

The agentive suffix is clear, but the telephone-prank sense depends on a specialized slang meaning of 'crank' that is not predictable from the ordinary base word.

Etymology

Cranker is linked to crank as in 'crank call', where crank often means 'an annoying or odd person' who makes rude or strange calls. So a cranker is someone who makes annoying, obscene, or threatening telephone calls.