Definition of "rook"

But what distinguishes the rook from the crow is the bill; the nostrils, chin, and sides of that and the mouth being in old birds white and bared of feathers, by often thrusting the bill into the ground in search of the erucæ of the Dor-beetle*; the rook then, instead of being proscribed, should be treated as the farmer's friend; as it clears his ground from caterpillars, that do incredible damage by eating the roots of the corn.

1768, Thomas Pennant, British Zoology, page 168

To-night the winds begin to rise⁠And roar from yonder dropping day:⁠The last red leaf is whirl’d away,The rooks are blown about the skies; […]

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], canto XV, page 24

So I am (like an old rook, who is ruined by gaming) forced to live on the good fortune of the pushing young men, whose fancies are so vigorous that they ensure their success in their adventures with Muses, by their strength and imagination.

7 April 1705, William Wycherley, Letter to Alexander Pope in The Works of Alexander Pope 36

Adventists still do not really know how to play cards, apart from the sanitized version of bridge, Rook.

2007, Malcolm Bull, Keith Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream, page 174

Some had spent a week in Jersey before coming to Guernsey; and, from what Paddy had heard, they really do know how to rook the visitors over there.

1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 311

The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top

c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene vi]