different between crevasse vs cranny

English

Etymology

From French crevasse. Doublet of crevice.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æs
• IPA^(key): /k???væs/

Noun

crevasse (plural crevasses)

1. A crack or fissure in a glacier or snowfield; a chasm.
2. (US) A breach in a canal or river bank.
3. (by extension) Any cleft or fissure.
   • 2010, Scott R. Riley, A Lost Hero Found (page 111)

     I moved my left hand to the small of her back, just above her belt-line and stroked the peach fuzz in her crevasse with my fingers.

4. (figuratively) A discontinuity or “gap” between the accounted variables and an observed outcome.
   • 1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 105 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)

     […] he laments that he can find no physiological phenomenon answering to his subject’s winning a race, or losing it. Between his terminal output of energy and his victory or defeat there is a mysterious crevasse. Physiology is baffled.

Translations

Verb

crevasse (third-person singular simple present crevasses, present participle crevassing, simple past and past participle crevassed)

1. (intransitive) To form crevasses.
2. (transitive) To fissure with crevasses.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.vas/
• Rhymes: -as

Etymology 1

Old French crevace, crever +? -asse

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

1. crevasse

Etymology 2

Inflected forms

Verb

crevasse

1. first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of crever

Further reading

• “crevasse” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• crevassa (dated)

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

1. (glaciology) crevasse (a crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field)

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?æni/
• Rhymes: -æni

Etymology 1

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 cren? (“split”, verb), from Vulgar Latin *crin? (“split, break”, verb), of obscure origin.

Despite a spurious use in Pliny, connection to Latin cr?na 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”).

Noun

cranny (plural crannies)

1. A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance.
   • c. 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull

     He peeped into every cranny.
2. A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc.

Related terms

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

Translations

Verb

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.

Etymology 2

Perhaps for cranky.

Adjective

cranny (comparative more cranny, superlative most cranny)

1. (Britain, dialect) quick; giddy; thoughtless

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)