nook and cranny

English

Noun

nook and cranny (plural nooks and crannies)

1. (idiomatic) A place or part of a place, especially one that is small, remote, or tedious to access.

   Everyone helped out to clean every nook and cranny of the house.

   Cleaning this equipment really isn't hard except that getting into all the nooks and crannies is time-consuming.

   • 1966, Pat Shaw Iversen (tr.), “Soup from a Sausage Peg”, in The Snow Queen and Other Tales, 1st edition, translation of Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, page 224:

     It's strange to come away from home, from your own nook and cranny, to go by ship – which is also a kind of nook and cranny – and then suddenly be more than a hundred miles away and stand in a foreign land!

   • 2021 April 7, Christian Wolmar, “Electrification is a given... but comfort matters as well”, in RAIL, number 928, page 47:

     Ever since the post-war spread of the motor car, the railways have had to contend with tough competition, but have had an inherent advantage in the commuter and inter-city markets. Now they are about to face two new enemies - a technology that everyone has learnt to use and a virus that many people think lurks in every nook and cranny of the rail system.

Synonyms

• nook or cranny (negative sentences)

Derived terms

• every nook and cranny
• every old nook and cranny

Translations

small or remote place

• French: tous les coins et les recoins
• German: Winkel (de) m, in jeder Ecke und jedem Winkel (in every nook and cranny)
• Irish: gach cearn is clúid (literally “every nook and cranny”)
• Italian: anfratto (it) m
• Japanese: 隅々まで (sumizumi made)
• Persian: سوراخ سنبه (surâx sonbe)
• Swedish: skrymsle (sv) n, vrå (sv) c, skrymslen och vrår (nooks and crannies)

Anagrams

• crook and nanny