crane

• IPA^(key): /kɹeɪn/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪn

From Middle English cran, from Old English cran (“crane”), from Proto-Germanic *kranô (“crane”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂- (“to cry hoarsely”). Cognate with Scots cran (“crane”), Dutch kraan (“crane”), German Kran (“crane”). The mechanical devices are named from their likeness to the bird.

crane (plural cranes)

1. Any bird of the family Gruidae, large birds with long legs and a long neck which is extended during flight.
   • 1876, "Burmah" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. IV, p. 552:

     Aquatic birds of various kinds are very numerous, such as geese, darters (Flotus melanogaster), scissor-bills (Rhynchops nigra), adjutants (Leptoptilos argala), pelicans, cormorants, cranes (Grus antigone, in Burmese gyoja), whimbrels, plovers, and ibises.

2. (US, dialectal) Ardea herodias, the great blue heron.
3. A mechanical lifting machine or device, often used for lifting heavy loads for industrial or construction purposes.
4. An iron arm with horizontal motion, attached to the side or back of a fireplace for supporting kettles etc. over the fire.
5. A siphon, or bent pipe, for drawing liquors out of a cask.
6. (nautical) A forked post or projecting bracket to support spars, etc.; generally used in pairs.

• Gruidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

• cranberry, via Low German Kraan (“crane”)

• egret
• heron
• stork

crane (third-person singular simple present cranes, present participle craning, simple past and past participle craned)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To extend (one's neck).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of George Eliot to this entry?)

2. (transitive) To raise or lower with, or as if with, a crane.
   • Bates

     What engines, what instruments are used in craning up a soul, sunk below the centre, to the highest heavens.

   • Massinger

     an upstart craned up to the height he has

3. (intransitive) To pull up before a jump.

crane (plural cranes)

1. (obsolete) The cranium.

• Caren, Cerna, Rance, caner, caren, crena, nacre, nacré, rance, recan

Inherited from Old English cran, *crana, from Proto-Germanic *kranô.

• krane, cranne, craane, crone, craune

• IPA^(key): /ˈkraːn(ə)/, /kran/

crane (plural cranes)

1. The common crane (Grus grus).
2. A crane (mechanical arm for construction)

• cranage

• English: crane
• Scots: cran

• “crāne (n.(1))” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-07.

Borrowed from Old French cran, from Medieval Latin crānium.

• cranee

• IPA^(key): /kraːn/

crane

1. cranium

• “crāne (n.(2))” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-07.