crane
pronunciation
How to pronounce crane in British English:
UK [kreɪn]
How to pronounce crane in American English:
US [kreɪn]
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- Noun:
- lifts and moves heavy objects; lifting tackle is suspended from a pivoted boom that rotates around a vertical axis
- large long-necked wading bird of marshes and plains in many parts of the world
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- Verb:
- stretch (the neck) so as to see better
Word Origin
- crane
- crane: [OE] Crane is a widespread Indo- European bird-name: related forms such as Latin grūs, Greek géranos (source of English geranium, also known as crane’s-bill, from the long pointed ‘beak’ of its fruit), and Welsh garan point to a prehistoric Indo-European base *ger-, possibly imitative of the bird’s raucous call. The resemblance of a crane lowering its long neck to feed or drink to the operation of a lifting apparatus with a long jib led to the application of crane to the latter in the 14th century (French grue and German kran show a similar semantic development). Cranberry [17] is a borrowing (originally American) of German cranbeere, literally ‘craneberry’, so named from the stamens, which supposedly resemble a beak.=> cranberry, geranium, pedigree
- crane (n.)
- Old English cran "large wading bird," common Germanic (cognates: Old Saxon krano, Old High German krano, German Kranich, and, with unexplained change of consonant, Old Norse trani), from PIE *gere-no-, suffixed form of root *gere- (2) "to cry hoarsely," also the name of the crane (cognates: Greek geranos, Latin grus, Welsh garan, Lithuanian garnys "heron, stork"). Thus the name is perhaps an echo of its cry in ancient ears. Metaphoric use for "machine with a long arm" is first attested late 13c. (a sense also in equivalent words in German and Greek).
- crane (v.)
- "to stretch (the neck)," 1799, from crane (n.). Related: Craned; craning.
Example
- 1. I need a crane to lift my finger .
- 2. For his fifth birthday , he said , he wanted a crane .
- 3. A crane carrying the capsule follows the helium balloon during the launch on sunday .
- 4. Once they built an extra floor in the shop with high walls but this beam crane remained .
- 5. But in some occupations , like operating a giant crane or piloting an aircraft , the consequences can be devastating .