▪ I. † grane, n. Obs.
Also 3–4 grone.
[Not in OE., but app. in ablaut relation to the synonymous grin n.1]
A snare, trap; a noose. (Cf. girn n.1)
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 134 Leste heo beo ikeiht þuruh summe of þe deofles gronen. Ibid. 278 So lutel þing is edmodnesse & so smel þet no grone ne mei hire etholden. 13.. Metr. Hom. (Vernon MS.) in Archiv Stud. d. neu. Spr. LVII. 247/1 He sauh al þe eorþe was sprad wiþ panters and wiþ grones blake. c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 437 Þes two lawis ben granes [misprinted graues] to þe fend to gnare men in his net. ― Sel. Wks. III. 198 Þe day of dome schal come as a snare, or grane. 1382 ― Amos iii. 5 A brid shal falle in to grane of erthe. ― Judith ix. 13 Be he taken with the grane of his eȝen in me. ― Matt. xxvii. 5 He hangide hym with a grane. c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 203 That fro hir gravys [? read granys] and hir snare Goth not awey that comyth between. |
▪ II. grane, v. Obs. exc. dial.
(greɪn)
Also 7, 9 grain, 9 dial. green.
[f. prec.; the form green may belong to grin v.]
trans. To choke, strangle.
| 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 112 One executioner on one side, and another on the other, graned him [the condemned person] with a linnen cloth about his neck, pulling the same till they forced him to gape. 1674–91 Ray S. & E.C. Words 101 To Grain or Grane; to choak or throttle. 1806 Bloomfield Wild Flowers 43 Till I was nearly gran'd outright He hugg'd so woundly hard. 1823 Moor Suffolk Words, Green, throttle—choak. A tight collar is said to green a horse. 1895 E. Anglian Gloss., Grain, to gripe the throat; to strangle. |
▪ III. grane
obs. f. grain; northern f. groan.
▪ IV. grane
var. of grain n.2 5 b.