Crab

Crab (plural Crabs)

1. A unit for measuring the intensity of astrophysical X-ray sources, defined as the intensity of the Crab Nebula at the corresponding X-ray photon energy.

• milliCrab

the Crab

1. (astronomy, astrology) The constellation and zodiacal sign Cancer.
   • 1634, Thomas Carew, Cœlum Britanicum. A masque at White-Hall in the Banquetting-House on Shrove-Tuesday-Night, the 18. of February 1633, London: John Walkley, page 11:

     This Crab, I confeſſe, did ill become the heavens[.]

   • 1668, ‘Godfridus’, The Knowledge of Things Unknown, London: G.P. for G. Sawbridge, page 19:

     Cancer, or the Crab, commandeth the Stomach, Limbs, Arteries, Milt, Liver and Gall.

   • 1862, [Frances Rolleston], Mazzaroth, or, The Constellations, London: Rivingtons, page 38:

     The Crab was said to be sent by Juno to bite Hercules in the heel; the Scorpion to have been sent by Ceres to sting Orion.

   • 1882, Robert Brown, On a German Astronomico-astrological Manuscript, and on the Origin of the Signs of the Zodiac, London: J.B. Nichols and Sons, page 8:

     The Crab and the Scorpion much resemble each other, as indeed they do in many other instances, the former being a reduplication of the latter.

   • 1947 November 14, Mountain District Free Press and Frentree Gully News, Tecoma, Vic., page 8, column 2:

     Now, if you went down into the forest where the spring gum-tips gleam gold and ruby in whatever sunshine, Heaven thinks fit to apportion at this season to residents of the Dandenongs (who surely were all born Aquarians) what sign of the Zodiac would you expect to meet? [...] Not Taurus the Bull, who is paddocked, or Cancer the Crab, who lives underground in these regions.

   • 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 64:

     ‘’Tis so, Owlface,’ said Catweazle, ‘the Sign of the Crab.’