Forms: 3– crag, 3–8 cragg, (4 kragge), 4–7 cragge, (5 ? dial. crack); β. 4–6 Sc. crage, 6– Sc. craig (krēg). [app. of Celtic origin: cf. Ir. and Gael. creag, Manx creg, cregg, Welsh craig rock. None of these, however, exactly gives the Eng. crag, cragg, found in north. dial. already before 1300, and app. of ancient use in the local nomenclature of the north of England and Scottish Lowlands. The mod. Sc. craig comes nearer in its vowel to the Celtic form; but it is app. a later development from an earlier crag (found in 14–15th c.): cf. Sc. naig = nag, etc.
The relations of the Celtic words themselves are obscure. W. craig is not the corresponding form to Ir. and Gael. creag, which would require crech in Welsh. W. has also carreg, OW. carrecc, a stone (sometimes also, a rock), Irish carruig, OI. carricc, rock, rocky headland, anglicized carrick.]
1. A steep or precipitous rugged rock.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 9885 (Cott.). Þis castel … es hei sett a-pon þe crag [v.r. cragg].
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 2240. Þat witty werwolf … kouchid him vnder a kragge.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, VI. 211. Betuixe ane hye crag and the se.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, VII. 847. The Irland folk … On craggis clam.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 293. In ane craig that callit is the Bas.
1628. Le Grys, trans. Barclay’s Argenis, 306. Nor … was there any … way to climbe vp those cragges.
1681. Cotton, Wond. Peake, 76. Bleak Craggs, and naked Hills.
1786. Gilpin, Obs. Pict. Beauty, Cumbrld. (1788), II. 228. The bare sides of these lofty craggs on the right.
1792. Burns, Duncan Gray, ii. Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig.
1806. Gazetteer Scot., 371. The awful and picturesque rocks called Minto craigs.
1842. Tennyson, ‘Break, break, break,’ iv. Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
b. Crag and tail (Geol.): see quot.
1850. W. B. Clarke, Wreck of ‘Favorite,’ 217. The … island … presenting the form of what is usually called ‘crag and tail’—i.e., being rocky and precipitous on one side and gradually sloping to the water’s edge on the other.
1865. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms, Crag and Tail (properly ‘craig and tail’), applied to a form of Secondary hills common in Britain, where a bold precipitous front is exposed to the west or north-west, and a sloping declivity towards the east. The phenomenon … is evidently the result of the currents of the Drift epoch.
2. A detached or projecting rough piece of rock.
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), vii. 24. Þer lies in ilke a hauen many grete cragges of stane.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, VIII. xxxiv. He lepte oute and fylle vpon the crackys in the see.
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 150. One only rude Row of broken Craggs about the Base of the Tumulus.
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), II. VII. xiv. 160. A crag of it [a mountain] being … struck from it by a flash of lightning.
1786. Gilpin, Obs. Pict. Beauty, Cumbrld., I. 193. Many of them are covered, like the steeps of Helvellin, with a continued pavement of craggs.
b. Applied to a curling-stone.
1789. D. Davidson, Thoughts on Seasons, 16. Then rattled up the rocking crag.
† c. As a material: Rock. Obs. rare.
1482. Paston Lett., No. 861, III. 285. I bequeth to Katerine his wiff … a stoon morter of cragge. [This, although from Norfolk, can hardly belong to 3.]
3. A local name for deposits of shelly sand found in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and used for manure; applied in Geol. to the Pliocene and Miocene strata to which these deposits belong, called, in order of age, the Coralline Crag, Red Crag, and Mammaliferous or Norwich Crag.
[It is doubtful whether this is the same word; the connection is not obvious.]
1735. J. Kirby, Suffolk Trav. (1764), 77. In Levington … was dug the first Crag or Shell, that has been found so useful for improving of Land.
1764. Gen. Mag., June, 282. There is in Suffolk a manure which the farmers call cragg.
1797. A. Young, Agric. Suffolk, 77. An experiment on shell marle from Woodbridge-side, called there, crag.
1838. G. A. Mantell, Wond. Geol. (1848), I. 223. In England a very interesting assemblage of pliocene and miocene strata … is called the Crag; a provincial term, signifying gravel. Ibid., 224. Coralline or lowermost Crag.
1885. Lyell’s Elem. Geol., xiii. (ed. 4), 160. The Red Crag … often rests immediately on the London clay, as in the county of Essex.
attrib. 1735. J. Kirby, Suffolk Trav. (1764), 78. Whoever looks into any of these Cragg-Pitts cannot but observe how they lie Layer upon Layer.
1832. De la Beche, Geol. Man., 210. Sections of the crag strata.
1873. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, App. 521. It is a crag-fossil.
1885. Lyell’s Elem. Geol., xiii. (ed. 4), 167. The commonest of the Crag shells.
4. Comb., as crag-built, -carven, -covered adjs., crag-hawk, -platform, -work, etc.; crag-fast a., said of a sheep which in climbing among crags gets into a position whence it can neither ascend nor descend.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 100. Craggestone [P. crag stone], rupa, scopula, cepido, saxum.
1807. Byron, Ho. Idleness, ‘When I roved,’ ii. As I felt when a boy on the crag-cover’d wild.
1821. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., III. iii. 122. The crag-built desarts of the barren deep.
1832. Tennyson, Pal. Art, ii. A huge crag-platform. Ibid. (1872), Gareth & L., 1172. In letters like to those … crag-carven o’er the streaming Gelt.
1861. Neale, Notes Eccl. Dalmatia, 110. Crag-hawks wheeling … round the peaks.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 9 Aug., 4/2. Along the rock ledges they [sheep] seek the freshest grass. And in search of this they sometimes become crag-fast. Ibid. (1888), 3 Aug., 5/2. A steep descent covered with screes, but … there is little or no crag-work.
