crag

See also: crág and crág-

English

Pronunciation

A crag (sense 1).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /kɹæɡ/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡ

Etymology 1

13th century Middle English, of Celtic origin, possibly from the late Proto-Indo-European/substrate *kar (“stone, hard”); see also Old Armenian քար (kʿar, “stone”), Sanskrit खर (khara, “hard, solid”), Welsh carreg (“stone”).

Related Celtic descendants include Scots craig, Scottish Gaelic creag, Irish creag, Welsh craig, Manx creg.

Noun

crag (plural crags)

1. A rocky outcrop; a rugged steep cliff or rock.
   • 1810, Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake; a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, OCLC 6632529, canto V (The Combat), stanza IX, page 202:

     "Have, then, thy wish!"—he whistled shrill, / And he was answered from the hill; / Wild as the scream of the curlieu, / From crag to crag the signal flew.

   • 1835, Alfred Tennyson, “‘Break, Break, Break’”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, OCLC 1008064829, stanza 3, page 229:

     Break, break, break, / At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! / But the tender grace of a day that is dead / Will never come back to me.

2. A rough, broken fragment of rock.
3. (geology) A partially compacted bed of gravel mixed with shells, of the Tertiary age.

Alternative forms

• craig

Derived terms

• cragfast
• Crag Foot
• craggy
• cragsman

Translations

rocky outcrop

• Albanian: shkrep (sq) m, skërkë (sq) f
• Arabic: جُرْفٌ‎ m (jurfun)
• Belarusian: скала́ f (skalá)
• Bulgarian: чукар (bg) m (čukar), канара (bg) f (kanara)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 峭壁 (zh) (qiàobì), 崖 (zh) (yá)

• Czech: útes (cs) m, převis (cs) m
• Finnish: kalliojyrkänne
• Galician: penedo (gl) m
• Georgian: კლდე (ka) (ḳlde)
• German: Felsen (de) m

• Greek:

  Ancient: κρημνός m (krēmnós), ἐρίπνη f (erípnē)

• Italian: costone (it) m, dirupo (it) m, strapiombo (it) m, precipizio (it) m, bricco m, bric m, falesia (it) f
• Japanese: 巨岩 (ja) (きょがん, kyogan), 崖 (ja) (がけ, gake)
• Latin: scopulus m
• Polish: skała (pl) f
• Portuguese: rochedo (pt) m, penha (pt) m
• Russian: скала́ (ru) f (skalá), утёс (ru) m (utjós)
• Scottish Gaelic: creag f, carraig f
• Spanish: afloramiento rocoso m, peñón m, despeñadero m
• Ukrainian: ске́ля f (skélja)

Etymology 2

A variant of craw.

Noun

crag (plural crags)

1. (dialectal or obsolete) The neck or throat.

References

• Dravidian Origins and the West: Newly Discovered Ties with the Ancient Culture and Languages, Including Basque, of the Pre-Indo-European Mediterranean World, p. 325
• Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition
• Scigliano, Eric (2007): Michelangelo's Mountain: The Quest For Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara, p. 84

Further reading

• crag on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• CAGR