An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Krabbe

by Friedrich Kluge

Krabbe, feminine, ‘crab,’ borrowed, like most words with medial bb, from Low German; compare Middle Low German krabbe, Dutch krab, Anglo-Saxon crabba, English crab, Scandinavian krabbi; the strictly High German, i.e. permutated, form Krappe, appears in the 16th century, yet the word was native only to the maritime Teutons. Krebs is from a cognate stem, but Greek κάραβος, Latin carabus, ‘sea-crab,’ are neither primary allied, nor are they the forms from which the Teutonic words were borrowed. French crabe, ‘crabfish,’ is most closely connected with the Teutonic and with the Latin word.