cradle
pronunciation
How to pronounce cradle in British English:
UK [ˈkreɪdl]
How to pronounce cradle in American English:
US [ˈkreɪdl]
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- Noun:
- a baby bed with sides and rockers
- where something originated or was nurtured in its early existence
- birth of a person
- a trough on rockers used by gold miners to shake earth in water in order to separate the gold
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- Verb:
- hold gently and carefully
- bring up from infancy
- hold or place in or as if in a cradle
- cut grain with a cradle scythe
- wash in a cradle
- run with the stick
Word Origin
- cradle (n.)
- "baby's bed," c. 1200, cradel, from Old English cradol "little bed, cot," from Proto-Germanic *kradulaz "basket" (cognates: Old High German kratto, krezzo "basket," German Krätze "basket carried on the back"). From late 14c. as "device for holding or hoisting." Cat's cradle is so called from 1768. Cradle-snatching "amorous pursuit of younger person" is from 1906. "It's like cradle-snatching to want to marry a girl of sixteen, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, for you can't be much more than twenty one yourself." ["Edith Van Dyne" (L. Frank Baum), "Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad," 1906]
- cradle (v.)
- c. 1500, from cradle (n.). Related: Cradled; cradling.
Example
- 1. India is a cradle of civilisations , artistically innovative and culturally diverse .
- 2. A visit here , the cradle of china 's capitalist resurgence , suggests not .
- 3. Much has been written about the subjugation of greece , the cradle of democracy , under a second german occupation .
- 4. The most exciting post-soviet wine to emerge from a country widely regarded as the cradle of viticulture .
- 5. As the students found , premature tightening of fiscal policy could strangle the recovery in its cradle and worsen future deficits .