See also: Crake

English

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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.

 
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Noun

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crake (plural crakes)

  1. Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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crake (third-person singular simple present crakes, present participle craking, simple past and past participle craked)

  1. To cry out harshly and loudly, like a crake.
    • 1854 October, “MIDNIGHT IN JULY”, in The Kerry Magazine: A Monthly Journal of Antiquities, Polite Literature, Poetry, volume 1, number 10, page 159:
      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 all its might.
    • 1872, Bertha E. Wright, Marvels from nature; or, A second visit to aunt Bessie, page 175:
      'How very disagreeable!' said Annie; 'perhaps the birds took it in turn to crake.'
    • 1951, The Listener - Volume 46, page 90:
      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.

Etymology 2

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From Middle English craken, from Old English cracian, from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn, from Proto-Germanic *krakōną.

Cognate with Saterland Frisian kroakje, West Frisian kreakje, Dutch kraken, Low German kraken, French craquer (< Germanic), German krachen.

Verb

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crake (third-person singular simple present crakes, present participle craking, simple past and past participle craked)

  1. (obsolete) To boast; to speak loudly and boastfully.
    • 1526, The Hundred Merry Tales; Or, Shakespeare's Jest Book:
      I hyred the to fyght agaynste Alexander, and not to crake and prate.
    • 1559, The Mirror for Magistrates:
      Each man may crake of that which was his own.
    • 1600, Phaer's Virgil:
      With him I threatned to be quite, and great things did I crake.
    • 1721, John Strype, Ecclesiastical memorials:
      And he that thus doth shal have smal pleasure in his awn rightwysnes, nor no gret lust to crake of his awn deserts or meryts.
Derived terms
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Noun

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crake (plural crakes)

  1. (obsolete) A crack; a boast.

Anagrams

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