crank letter
1
8.6
- noun
- Offensive
:
carta amenazadora
- After reading the crank letter, she felt uncomfortable knowing someone was harassing her without revealing their identity.
Examples
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The editor dismissed the crank letter as the ramblings of an upset reader who didn’t agree with the magazine's viewpoint.
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You got another one of these crank letters today.
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It's a piece of bullshit like all those other crank letters.
Fiction book (1990) -
The police received a crank letter that threatened public safety and was signed anonymously.
Synonyms
20
4.6
Mean or threatening messages sent to upset someone
An anonymous letter that says cruel things to hurt someone
How Hostile
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally formed from 'crank' + 'letter', so a B1 learner who knows 'crank' (an eccentric/irritable person) and 'letter' can infer it is a letter written by a crank. However, the specific nuance that such letters are hostile, threatening, and typically anonymous is not fully predictable from the constituents and requires pragmatic/idiomatic knowledge.
Etymology
The noun crank letter likely comes from an older use of crank meaning an odd, angry person. Imagine someone with a 'twisted' mind who writes angry, secret letters; that image explains why a crank letter means a 'hostile or threatening letter'.