[CRANE sb.1 1 + BILL. A translation by the 16th c. herbalists of Du. craenhals, Ger. kranichhals, MLG. kraneshals, names of Geranium dissectum.]
1. Bot. A name for the various species (esp. the native British species) of the genus Geranium; so called from the long slender beak of the fruit.
By the 16th c. herbalists applied originally to only one species, apparently G. dissectum.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes, D iij. Geranium is of two kyndes. The one kynde is called Pinke nedle or Cranes byl, the other is called Pes columbinus of the commune Herbaries, and it may be called in englishe Douefote.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, II. ccclviii. 940. The roots of this Cranes bill have a little kinde of heat in them.
1693. Sir T. P. Blount, Nat. Hist., 8. One kind of Cranes-Bill, call’d Geranium Moschatum … smells just like Musk.
1756. Sir J. Hill, Herbal, 196. The cranesbills are characterised … by their singular fruit.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 99. Carpets of flowers, primroses, orchises, cowslips, ground-ivy, crane’s bill, cotton-grass.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, II. xx. 92 (D.). Is there any blue half so pure, and deep, and tender, as that of the large crane’s-bill, the Geranium pratense of the botanists?
2. Surg. A kind of forceps with long jaws.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev. (1708), 28. Came the Surgeons, laden with Pincers, Crane-bills, Catheters, [etc.].
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Crane’s-bill, a kind of forceps used by surgeons, and so named from its figure.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Crane’s-bill, a pair of long-nosed pinchers.
