Also Sc. craik. [In sense 1, app. a. ON. krâka f. crow, krâkr m. raven (Norw. kraake, Sw. kråka, Da. krage, crow); cf. also Ger. dial. krâke, kracke, krack in same sense: see Grimm. Of echoic origin: cf. CROAK. In sense 2, perh. orig. the same word (corn crake = corn crow), but now viewed as directly derived from the grating cry of the bird, as in sense 3: cf. the Gr. κρέξ, κρεκ- as name of some croaking fowl.]

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  1.  A crow or raven. north. dial.

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c. 1320.  Seuyn Sag., 3893. Fulfild es now the crakes crying.

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a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter cxlvi. 10. Briddes of krakis kalland him.

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c. 1400.  Maundev. (Roxb.), viii. 31. Rukes and crakes and oþer fowles.

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1483.  Cath. Angl., 80. Crake, cornix, coruus.

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1674–91.  Ray, N. C. Words, Crake, a Crow.

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1855.  Robinson, Whitby Gloss., Crake or Cruke, a rook or crow. ‘Aud crake-sticks,’ an old rook’s nest.

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1876.  in Mid-Yorksh. Gloss.

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  2.  A name of birds of the family Rallidæ, esp. the CORN-CRAKE (also Bean Crake) or Landrail (Crex pratensis); also the Water Crake or Spotted Crake (Porzana maruetta).

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a. 1455.  Holland, Houlate, lxi. The Corn Crake, the pundar at hand.

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1791.  Burns, Elegy Capt. Henderson, ix. Mourn, clam’ring craiks at close of day.

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1797.  Bewick, Brit. Birds, 313. The young craiks run as soon as they have burst the shell.

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1850.  Tennyson, In Mem., CI. iv. The brook shall … flood the haunts of hern and crake.

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1863.  Spring Lapl., 353. None of the rails or crakes appear to come so far north.

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1879.  R. Adamson, Lays Leisure Hours, 49. I hear, in gloamin grey The crake among the corn.

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  3.  The cry of the corn-crake.

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1868.  D. Gorrie, Summ. & Wint. Orkneys, v. 296. The far-heard craik of the rail.

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1879.  Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 218. They [corncrakes] utter their loud call of ‘Crake, crake, crake!’ not unlike the turning of a wooden rattle.

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  4.  Comb. crake-berry (north.), the CROW-BERRY (Empetrum nigrum); crake-needle, the Shepherd’s Needle or Venus’s Comb (Scandix Pecten).

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1674–91.  Ray, N. C. Words, Crakeberries, crowberries. Crake-needle, Shepherd’s-needle, or the Seed-Vessels of it.

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1777.  J. Lightfoot, Flora Scot., II. 612. Black-berried Heath, Crow, or Crake-berries.

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1837.  Macdougall, trans. Graah’s E. Coast Greenl., 65. We found here … a great quantity of black crakeberries, as large, and nearly as well flavoured, as our own.

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1861.  Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., IV. 337. Black Crow-berry, or Crake-berry … is a small shrubby prostrate plant.

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