Crane

How to spell crane

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crane

What does crane mean?

1. nounA tall machine with a projecting arm used for lifting and moving heavy loads.
2. nounA tall, long-legged, long-necked wading bird.
3. verbTo stretch out the neck in order to see something more clearly.

Crane in a sentence

• noun

  A towering crane lowered the steel beam onto the rooftop.

• noun

  A grey crane stood motionless in the shallow marsh.

• verb

  She had to crane her neck to read the sign behind the pillar.

• noun

  The dock crane unloaded shipping containers all afternoon.

• noun

  The wetland reserve protects a rare breeding crane.

• verb

  Fans began to crane forward as the singer walked on stage.

Where does crane come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from the Old English cran, the name of the tall, long-necked wading bird, and it traces back to a Germanic and ultimately Indo-European root that imitated the bird's harsh cry. Relatives survive across the Germanic and other European languages, such as the Dutch kraan and the German Kran, and the same ancient root lies behind the Latin grus and the Greek geranos for the same bird. By the 1300s the name had been borrowed for the lifting machine, because the tall, jointed arm that hoists loads reminded people of the bird's long, stretching neck. From there came the verb meaning to stretch out the neck to see better, exactly as a crane does. The plain four-letter spelling has no silent traps, which keeps it among the easier words to write.

How the word is built

• crane (from Old English cran, a tall wading bird); the machine and verb senses extend from the bird's long, outstretched neck