curnock local.
(ˈkɜːnək)
Also 5 carnok, 8 carnock, 6–7 cornock, 7 cornook.
[App. another form of crannock, crennoc, one or the other being due to metathesis of r.
Perhaps of Welsh origin; the Welsh form being crynog, which, according to Silvan Evans, may be for *cyrnog conical heap, from cwrn cone. A parallel form cyrnen, conical heap, is common in many parts of Wales. This change of *cyrnog, crynog in Welsh would, if certain, account for the carn-, curn-, and cran-, cren-, cryn- forms in Eng. The Welsh crynog appears to be known as a measure only in Glamorganshire and part of Monmouthshire.]
An obsolete (or nearly obsolete) dry measure formerly used in the West of England, from Cheshire to Somersetshire, and in parts of South Wales.
Its capacity varied according to place and commodity; for corn it was usually 4 bushels = a ‘coomb’; for wheat sometimes 3 bushels. For coal and lime, it varied locally; in Glamorganshire in 1815, from 10 to 12 or 15 bushels (Davies Agric. of S. Wales II. 172), and the Cheshire crenneke or crynoke of salt in the 16th c. appears to have been at least as much.
| 1479 Office of Mayor of Bristol in Eng. Gilds (1870) 426 That every sak [of colys] be tryed & provid to be & holde a carnok. 1509 Will of R. Jamys (Somerset Ho.), Quatour modios frumenti de mensura de Chepstow, anglice a Cornock. 1638 Penkethman Artach. D ij, A Cornook conteineth 256 Pounds. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 260/2 A Cornock is 2 strikes or 4 Bushels. 1708 J. Chamberlayne St. Gt. Brit. i. iii. ii. (1743) 157 Four bushels [make] the Comb or Curnock. 1727 W. Mather Yng. Man's Comp. 198, 4 Bushels a Comb, or Curnock, 2 Curnocks a Quarter. 1727 Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Dry Measure. 1863 Morton Cycl. Agric. 1123–7 (in O.C. & F. Words 170), Curnock (Worcestershire), of barley or oats, 4 bushels; of wheat, 9 score 10 lbs. = 3 bushels. |