crane

• IPA^(key): /kɹeɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪn

From Middle English cran, from Old English cran (“crane”), from Proto-West Germanic *kran, 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, dialect) Ardea herodias, the great blue heron.
3. A mechanical lifting machine or device, often used for lifting heavy loads for industrial or construction purposes.
   • 2000, Bob Foster, Birdum or Bust!, Henley Beach, SA: Seaview Press, page 111:

     Large cranes were virtually non-existent in the areas I worked with this truck, so we jacked everything on and off[.]

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

(Lifting devices):

• cranberry, via German 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).
   • 2008, Rivers Cuomo (lyrics and music), “Troublemaker”, in Weezer (Red Album), performed by Weezer:

     I'm gonna be a star and people will crane necks
     To get a glimpse of me and see if I am having sex

   • 1879, George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

     and my bachelor's hearth is imbedded where by much craning of head and neck I can catch sight of a sycamore in the Square garden,

2. (transitive) To raise or lower with, or as if with, a crane.
   • 1693, William Bates, Sermons preach'd on Several Occasions:

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

   • 1619, Philip Massinger and Nathan Field, The Fatal Dowry

     an upstart craned up to the height he has

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

From Middle English crane, cranee, from Old French cran, from Medieval Latin crānium.

crane (plural cranes)

1. (obsolete) The cranium.

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

Inherited from Old English cran, *crana.

• krane, cranne, craane, crone, craune

• IPA^(key): /ˈkraːn(ə)/, /kran/

crane (plural cranes)

1. crane (bird)
2. crane (machine)

• cranage

• English: crane (see there for further descendants)
• 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

• English: crane (obsolete)

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