cranny

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹæni/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -æni

From Middle English crany, crani (“cranny”), apparently a diminutive of *cran (+ -y), from Old French cran, cren (“notch, fissure”), a derivative of crener (“to notch, split”), from Medieval Latin crenō (“split”, verb), from Vulgar Latin *crinō (“split, break”, verb), of obscure origin.

Despite a spurious use in Pliny, connection to Latin crēna is doubtful. Instead, probably of Germanic or Celtic origin. Compare Old High German chrinna (“notch, groove, crevice”), Alemannic German Krinne (“small crack, channel, groove”), Low German karn (“notch, groove, crevice, cranny”), Old Irish ara-chrinin (“to perish, decay”).

cranny (plural crannies)

1. A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 208, line 237:

     Down thro the Cranies of the living Walls / The Crystal Streams descend in murm'ring Falls

   • 1733, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], Alexander Pope, compiler, “Law is a Bottomless Pit. Or, The History of John Bull. […]. The Second Part. Chapter XXII. Of the Great Joy that John Express’d when He Got Possession of Ecclesdown.”, in Miscellanies, 2nd edition, volume II, London: […] Benjamin Motte, […], →OCLC, page 170:

     [H]e peep'd into every Cranny; ſometimes he admir'd the Beauty of the Architecture, and the vaſt Solidity of the Maſon's VVork; at other Times he commended the Symmetry and Proportion of the Rooms.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter II, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 10:

     What a pity they didn’t stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there.

2. A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc.

• any nook or cranny, every nook and cranny, nook and cranny, nook or cranny

cranny (third-person singular simple present crannies, present participle crannying, simple past and past participle crannied)

1. (intransitive) To break into, or become full of, crannies.
   • 1567, Arthur Golding: Ovid's Metamophoses; Bk. 2, line 333

     The ground did cranie everie where and light did pierce to hell.

2. (intransitive) To haunt or enter by crannies.
   • 1812–1818, Lord Byron, “Canto XLVII”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. , London: John Murray,, (please specify the stanza number):

     All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.

Hindi [Term?]

cranny (plural crannies)

1. (India, obsolete) A clerk writing English.
2. (India, obsolete) A member of the East Indians, or mixed-race people, from among whom English copyists were chiefly recruited.

• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “cranny”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […].