Crabwise

Origin

From crab + -wise.

Full definition of crabwise

Adjective

1. In the manner of a crab; sideways.
2. (figuratively) Incidental.
• 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 788:Quite apart from their crabwise and often reluctant embrace of religious toleration for a wide variety of religious dissidence, both countries achieved a wider distribution of prosperity than any other part of seventeenth-century Europe.

Adverb

1. In the manner of a crab; sideways.