Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several short-billed birds of the family Rallidae, such as the corncrake.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as crack.
  • noun A boast.
  • To cry like a crake; utter the harsh cry of the corn-crake.
  • noun A crow; a raven. Compare night-crake.
  • noun A general name for the small rails with short bills shaped somewhat like that of the domestic hen.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any species or rail of the genera Crex and Porzana; -- so called from its singular cry. See corncrake.
  • verb To cry out harshly and loudly, like the bird called crake.
  • verb obsolete To boast; to speak loudly and boastfully.
  • noun obsolete A boast. See crack, n.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several birds, of the family Rallidae, that have short bills.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of several short-billed Old World rails

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, crow, probably from Old Norse krāka; see gerə- in Indo-European roots.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word crake.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.