crake
Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.
Noun
- Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.
Origin
From Middle English crak, crake, from Old Norse kráka (“crow”), from Proto-Germanic *krak-, *kra- (“to croak, caw”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂-, itself onomatopoeic.
Forms
Derived
African crake Andaman crake Ascension crake ash-throated crake Baillon's crake banded crake black crake brown crake Colombian crake corncrake corn crake corn-crake cracker crakeberry Laysan crake marsh crake ocellated crake paint-billed crake slaty-legged crake spotless crake (Zapornia tabuensis spotted crake uniform crake water crake
Noun obsolete
- A crack; a boast.
Origin
From Middle English craken, from Old English cracian, from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn. Cognate with Saterland Frisian kroakje, West Frisian kreakje, Dutch kraken, Low German kraken, French craquer (< Germanic), German krachen.
Forms
Verb Entry 3
- To cry out harshly and loudly, like a crake.
- How still ! how very still it is, So silent it appears, E'en from its intensity, To tingle in mine ears. I hear the sheep-bell far away In the calm breathless night; The corncrake begins to crake . Crake, crake, with...
- 'How very disagreeable!' said Annie; 'perhaps the birds took it in turn to crake.' - 1872, Bertha E. Wright, Marvels from nature; or, A second visit to aunt Bessie, page 175:
- Of course, a corncrake, as its name suggests, likes to crake among the corn and hayfields, so that in fact you are unlikely ever to confuse it with the spotted crake, a bird to which dry land is almost anathema. - 1951,...
Forms
Verb obsolete
- To boast; to speak loudly and boastfully.
- I hyred the to fyght agaynste Alexander, and not to crake and prate. - 1526, The Hundred Merry Tales; Or, Shakespeare's Jest Book:
- Each man may crake of that which was his own. - 1559, The Mirror for Magistrates:
- With him I threatned to be quite, and great things did I crake. - 1600, Phaer's Virgil: