cranny

English

Etymology

From Middle English crany, crani (“cranny”), apparently a diminutive of *cran (+ -y), from Old French cran, cren (“notch, fissure”), a derivative of crener (“to notch, split”), from Medieval Latin crenō (“split”, verb), from Vulgar Latin *crinō (“split, break”, verb), of obscure origin.

Despite a spurious use in Pliny, connection to Latin crēna is doubtful. Instead, probably of Germanic or Celtic origin. Compare Old High German chrinna (“notch, groove, crevice”), Alemannic German Krinne (“small crack, channel, groove”), Low German karn (“notch, groove, crevice, cranny”), Old Irish ara-chrinin (“to perish, decay”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹæni/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æni

Noun

cranny (plural crannies)

1. A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 2, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 10:

     What a pity they didn’t stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there.

   • 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull:

     He peeped into every cranny.

   • 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, line 237, page 208:

     Down thro the Cranies of the living Walls
     The Crystal Streams descend in murm'ring Falls

2. A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc.

Related terms

• any nook or cranny, every nook and cranny, nook and cranny, nook or cranny

Translations

A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Bulgarian: пукнатина (bg) f (puknatina), пролука (bg) (proluka), процеп (bg) m (procep)
• Dutch: spleet (nl), scheur (nl)
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: halkeama (fi), rako (fi)
• French: please add this translation if you can
• German: Spalt (de) m, Versteck (de) n
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Maori: piere, mātata
• Romanian: fisură (ro) f
• Russian: щель (ru) f (ščelʹ), трещина (ru) f (treščina)
• Spanish: recoveco (es) m
• Swedish: springa (sv) c

A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc.

Verb

cranny (third-person singular simple present crannies, present participle crannying, simple past and past participle crannied)

1. (intransitive) To break into, or become full of, crannies.
   • 1567, Arthur Golding: Ovid's Metamophoses; Bk. 2, line 333

     The ground did cranie everie where and light did pierce to hell.

2. (intransitive) To haunt or enter by crannies.
   • 1812–1818, Lord Byron, “Canto XLVII”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. , London: John Murray,, (please specify the stanza number):

     All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.