Definition of "crone"

But still the crone was constant to her note.

1700, [John] Dryden, “The Wife of Bathe’s Tale. As it was Written by Geffrey Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

With black unseeing eyes the old woman, the crone, stares at him and through him. Over and over she mutters a word that he cannot quite catch, something like Toomderoom.

2005, J. M. Coetzee, “Six”, in Slow Man, New York: Viking, page 36

In traveling homeward, buy forty good crones, and fat up the bodies of those seely bones

1557 February 13, Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie., London: […] Richard Tottel; republished London: Reprinted for Robert Triphook, […], and William Sancho, […], 1810,

The old crone [a negro man] lived in a hovel, in the midst of a small patch of potatoes and Indian corn, which his master had given him on setting him free.

1822 May 21, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Haunted House”, in Bracebridge Hall, or The Humourists. A Medley. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: […] C. S. Van Winkle, […], page 210

A few old battered crones of office.

1844, Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby