▪ I. crake, n.
(kreɪk)
Also Sc. craik.
[In sense 1, app. a. ON. krâka f. crow, krâkr m. raven (Norw. kraake, Sw. kråka, Da. krage, crow); cf. also Ger. dial. krâke, kracke, krack in same sense: see Grimm. Of echoic origin: cf. croak. In sense 2, perh. orig. the same word (corn crake = corn crow), but now viewed as directly derived from the grating cry of the bird, as in sense 3: cf. the Gr. κρέξ, κρεκ- as name of some croaking fowl.]
1. A crow or raven. north. dial.
| c 1320 Seuyn Sag. 3893 Fulfild es now the crakes crying. a 1340 Hampole Psalter cxlvi. 10 Briddes of krakis kalland him. c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) viii. 31 Rukes and crakes and oþer fowles. 1483 Cath. Angl. 80 Crake, cornix, coruus. 1674–91 Ray N.C. Words, Crake, a Crow. 1855 Robinson Whitby Gloss., Crake or Cruke, a rook or crow. ‘Aud crakesticks’, an old rook's nest. 1876 in Mid-Yorksh. Gloss. |
2. A name of birds of the family Rallidæ, esp. the corn-crake (also bean crake) or landrail (Crex pratensis); also the water crake or spotted crake (Porzana maruetta).
| a 1455 Holland Houlate lxi, The Corn Crake, the pundar at hand. 1791 Burns Elegy Capt. Henderson ix, Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close of day. 1797 T. Bewick Brit. Birds 313 The young craiks run as soon as they have burst the shell. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. ci. iv, The brook shall..flood the haunts of hern and crake. 1863 Spring Lapl. 353 None of the rails or crakes appear to come so far north. 1879 R. Adamson Lays Leisure Hours 49, I hear, in gloamin grey The crake among the corn. |
3. The cry of the corn-crake.
| 1876 D. Gorrie Summer & Wint. in Orkneys v. 194 The far-heard craik of the rail. 1879 Jefferies Wild Life in S. Co. 218 The corncrakes..utter their loud call of ‘Crake, crake, crake!’ not unlike the turning of a wooden rattle. |
4. Comb. crake-berry (north.), the crow-berry (Empetrum nigrum); crake-needle, the Shepherd's Needle or Venus's Comb (Scandix Pecten).
| 1674–91 Ray N.C. Words, Crakeberries, crowberries. Crake-needle, Shepherd's-needle, or the Seed-Vessels of it. 1777 J. Lightfoot Flora Scot. II. 612 Black-berried Heath, Crow, or Crake-berries. 1837 Macdougall tr. Graah's Greenland 65 We found here..a great quantity of black crakeberries..nearly as well flavoured as our own. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. IV. 337 Black Crow-berry, or Crake-berry..is a small shrubby prostrate plant. |
▪ II. crake, v.1
(kreɪk)
Also 5– Sc. craik.
[If croak goes back to an OE. *crácian (of which the recorded crǽcetian would be dim.), crake may be the northern form, as in oak, ake, etc.; cf. LG. krâken in Grimm. But croak is of late appearance, and both it and crake may be of echoic origin.]
1. intr. To utter a harsh grating cry: said of the crow, quail, corn-crake, etc.
(The first quot. may belong to crake v.2, crack v.)
| c 1386 Chaucer Merch. T. 606 The slakke skin about his nekke schakith, Whil that he song; so chaunteth he and craketh. c 1450 Henryson Mor. Fab. 58 Als the Quailȝie craikand in the corne. 1547 Pore Help x in Strype Eccl. Mem. II. App. J. 38 Some bluster and blowe, And crake (as the crowe). 1591 Florio 2nd Fruites 101 When the crowe begins to crake, The Fox beguiles him of his cake. a 1605 Montgomerie Flyting 504 Geise and gaislings cryes and craikes. [Cf. creak v.] 1886 W. W. Fowler Year with Birds 32 Crooning, craking, and hopping into it again. |
† 2. To grate harshly; to creak. Obs.
| 1657 J. Smith Myst. Rhet. 73 The craking of a door. |
▪ III. † crake, v.2 Obs. exc. dial.
A variant of crack v. (being the direct phonetic repr. of OE. cracian), used esp. in the sense ‘To boast, brag’.
It is still in dial. use, e.g. in Suffolk.