cran

English

Etymology 1

Evidently from, or at least influenced by Goidelic; compare Scottish Gaelic crann (“lot, measure of herring, tree, etc.”).

Alternative forms

• crane

Noun

cran (plural crans or cran)

1. (obsolete) A measure of herrings, either imprecise or sometimes legally specified. It has oftentimes been about 37½ imperial gallons, or ~750 herrings on average (up to 1200 or even ~2500).
   • 1800 Dec, Sir Richard Phillips, The Monthly magazine‎, volume 10, number 66, page 486:

     Very flattering indeed has been the success of the fishermen; and many boats have come in loaded, averaging thirty or forty crans each (every cran estimated at 1,000 herrings), and disposed of their cargoes at nine shillings per cran; but the price has been since raised to fifteen shillings.

   • 1938, Louis MacNeice, Bagpipe Music:

     His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish, / Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.

   • 1960, Ewan MacColl, BBC radio ballad, Singing the Fishing:

     […] And fish the knolls on the North Sea Holes
     And try your luck at the North Shields Gut
     With a catch of a hundred cran.

   • 1970s, Archie Fisher, The Final Trawl:

     But I've fished a lifetime, boy and man,
     And the final trawl scarcely makes a cran.

2. (obsolete, rare, by extension) A barrel made to hold such a measure.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:cran.

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

cran (plural crans)

1. (music) An embellishment played on the lowest note of a chanter of a bagpipe, consisting of a series of grace notes produced by rapid sequential lifting of the fingers of the lower hand.

Etymology 3

Noun

cran (plural crans)

1. Alternative form of qiran

See also

• vodka cran

Anagrams

• Carn, NRCA, cRNA, carn, crna, narc

French

Etymology

Deverbal of créner (“to kern”), from crenedes (“notched”), from Vulgar Latin *crinare, probably of Celtic/Gaulish origin, from Proto-Celtic *krini-, from Proto-Indo-European *krey- (“to divide, separate”). Or, less likely, from Latin cernō (“to separate”), itself from the same root.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kʁɑ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

cran m (plural crans)

1. notch
2. (firearms) safety catch
3. (belt) hole
4. (hair) wave
5. (colloquial) guts, bottle, courage

   Ce garçon a du cran, pour oser sauter en parachute.

   That boy has guts to dare do a parachute jump.

   • 1998, “Agrévolution”, in Ol Kainry (lyrics), Ce n’est que l’début, performed by Agression Verbale:

     Tu sais pourquoi on voit grand, depuis qu’on est grand, qu’on a du cran / C’est que la merde nous a pendu, on est adolescent / Cran d’arrêt en guise de porte bonheur

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Derived terms

• cran d’arrêt
• être à cran

References

Further reading

• “cran”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *kranō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /krɑn/

Noun

cran m

1. crane (bird)

   Se cran wæs standende on ānum sċancan.

   The crane was standing on one leg.

   Oft man ġehīerþ cranas lange ǣr hē hīe ġesiehþ.

   You often hear cranes long before you see them.

   Þā cranas wyrċaþ heora nest on ċiriċena belhūsum.

   The cranes make their nests in the bell towers of churches.

Declension

Descendants

• Middle English: crane, krane, cranne, craane, crone, craune
  • English: crane (see there for further descendants)
  • Scots: cran
  • Yola: kraanberry, kraaneberry

Romanian

Noun

cran n (plural cranuri)

1. Obsolete form of craniu.

Declension

References

• cran in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN