, to fly slightly off the straight-line course towards an enemy aircraft, as the machine guns on early aircraft did not allow firing through the propeller disk.
From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba, from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną, from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰ-, a variant of *gerebʰ-. More at carve.
See also Dutch krab, Low German Krabb, Danish krabbe, Swedish krabba, Dutch krabben.
Further cognates with frequentative-infix are Saterland Frisian krabbelje, Dutch krabbelen and German krabbeln.
From Middle English crabbe, of Germanic origin, plausibly from North Germanic, cognate with Swedish dialect scrabba.