Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small opening, as in a wall or rock face; a crevice.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Any small narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, a rock, a tree, etc.
- To become intersected with or penetrated by crannies, clefts, or crevices.
- To enter by crannies; haunt crannies.
- Pleasant; brisk; jovial.
- n. A tool for forming the necks of glass bottles.
Wiktionary
- adj. UK, dialect quick; giddy; thoughtless
- n. A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance.
- n. A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance.
- n. (Glass Making) A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc.
- v. rare To crack into, or become full of, crannies.
- v. To haunt, or enter by, crannies.
- adj. Prov. Eng. Quick; giddy; thoughtless.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a long narrow depression in a surface
- n. a small opening or crevice (especially in a rock face or wall)
Etymologies
- From Middle English crany, crani ("cranny"), apparently a diminutive of Middle English *cran (+ -y), from Old French cran, cren ("notch, fissure"), a derivative of Old French crener ("to notch, split"), from Medieval Latin crenō ("split", v), from Vulgar Latin *crinō ("split, break", v), 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"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English crani, perhaps alteration of Old French cren, cran, notch, from *crener, to notch. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Playtime … The game without searching EVERY shelf, nook, and cranny is 20-25 hours.”
“Anyone familiar with the Linux world will find a utility to fill any nook and cranny which is another way of saying that the user won't be short of add-on software, to match the supposed depth and diversity of the Windows world.”
“As Congress scrutinizes every nook and cranny of the budget for possible revenue, a surprising court decision is allowing clergy members to buy or live in multiple homes tax-free.”
“White Horse Bookshop 136 High Street, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 1HN, 01672 512071Books are crammed into every nook and cranny of this charming little shop.”
“XOYO, EC2, ThuSam RichardsBugged Out's refreshingly widescreen approach to music has embraced club nights and festivals since the dawn of time well, 1994 but this latest weekender gives free rein to BO's quest to leave no musical cranny unexplored.”
“And then re-introduced to it on the half shell, glazed with a thermidor sauce, decorated with crisp, salty sprigs of samphire, all of which makes you want to lick the shell clean, to dig your tongue into every nook and cranny.”
The Guardian: Best UK Restaurant 2010: The Kitchin, Edinburgh
“Art seeps into and out of every nook and cranny in human culture, it's how we imagine the world that is due us, and poetry, in particular, is its own language: Metaphor is how our brains process language and experience, more than any other mechanism (the other two primary tools being music and mathematics).”
“In the weeks which followed, several domiciliary visits were paid, not a shack or tent in Nome escaping, but Fortune lay in his cranny undisturbed.”
“We now occupy every continent and are exploring every nook and cranny of the Earth for new resources.”
The Huffington Post: David Suzuki: Humans May Have Loaded the Bases, but Nature Bats Last
“But some of these compounds are slow-acting -- and all require repeated treatments and a coordinated, no-holds-barred attack to rid every nook and cranny of the infested household of the vampiric pests.”
The Huffington Post: Bill Chameides: Is Propoxur the Way to Not Let the Bedbugs Bite?
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cranny’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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zanshin's Words
gargoyle, ennui, paradigm, aardvark, verisimilitude, ghoti, tenacity, nescience, guillemet, squonk, maven, moxie and 210 more...
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vozcelik's Words
cranny, tummy, nook, sinister, cajole, frugal, chafe, wimp, booger, patriarchy, indifference, mire and 162 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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amber words
amber words is the term I use for words that are all but fossilized, in the sense that their use is always in the context of a single expression. Examples include caboodle, dudgeon, umbrage
sanctum, akimbo, amok, riddance, druthers, trove, caboodle, immemorial, blithering, dudgeon, swaddling, askance and 110 more...
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Holes
judas, judas-hole, hole, creephole, pinhole, spy-eye, blowhole, breathing-hole, spiracle, touchhole, mouth, cakehole and 166 more...
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wordsmith III: revenge of wordie
sedimentary, igneous, segment, surfeit, unctuous, magma, garble, ransack, concubine, coincide, metamorphic, clastic and 208 more...
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Next!
salvific, redemptive, salvic, roil, changeling, barrow, burro, sow, swath, haymow, shock, sheaves and 190 more...
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somern's Words
obsequious, schadenfreude, pneumonoultramicr..., carillon, praline, cybrarian, solstice, widdershins, trantulent, taciturn, roentgenology, onomatopoeia and 52 more...
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senrad's Words
paradoxical, glacier, extremity, forlorn, extrapolate, existential, mirth, spork, subterfuge, subtle, epiphany, astronomical and 44 more...
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Words I Hate
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cranny.
bilby Nook and cranny, now there's a spoonerism waiting to happen.
Nov 24, 2007
sonofgroucho Often associated with one or more nooks. Nov 24, 2007