Forms: (5 crayne), 5–7 crany, 6–7 cranie, craney, 7 crannie, -ey, (craine), 7– cranny. [app. related to F. cran (in Cotgr. cren) ‘a notch, cleft, niche, or jag,’ a crack in metal, a transverse fissure in strata, etc.; but the etymology and form-history present many difficulties.
F. cren, cran is in Walloon cren, and is associated with Rumansch crenna, Lombard crena. It is referred by Darmesteter to a pop. L. *crennum, supposed to be related to *crena a word formerly attributed to Pliny, but now considered as a textual error. No early example of the French word is known [see however CRENELL]; Palsgrave translates ‘cranny’ by crevasse. The form of the English word makes its French derivation doubtful, as this does not account for the termination. The form crayne in Promp. Parv., is a scribal error for cranye (see ref. under Crauas), and craine in Minsheu is apparently merely copied from it.]
A small narrow opening or hole; a chink, crevice, crack, fissure.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 100. Cranye [erroneously Crayne] or crayues [Pynson crany or craues], rima, rimula, riscus. 101. Crauas supra in Crany.
c. 1460. Play Sacram., 710. Here the owyn must ryve asunder & blede owt at ye cranys & an Image appere owt wt woundis bledyng.
1530. Palsgr., 210/2. Crany or ryft, cravasse.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 560. Peeping in at a cranny of his chamber door.
1617. Minsheu, Ductor, Craine or cleft, vide Cranie … A Cranie, craine, or cleft.
1641. Wilkins, Math. Magick, II. i. (1648), 152. Which does usually blow in at every chink or cranny.
1672. Cave, Prim. Chr., III. ii. (1673), 281. No light but what peeped in from a few little cranies.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, II. viii. 166. I saw the water ooze in at several crannies.
1836. Marryat, Japhet, xlv. 89. After examining every nook and cranny they could think of.
1865. Geikie, Scen. & Geol. Scot., xii. 321. Swallows build their nests in the crannies of the cliff.
fig. c. 1600[?]. Distracted Emp., I. i. in Bullen, O. Pl., III. 181. Some … that neare [= ne’er] looke Into the chynckes and crannyes of the state.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 152. Some lurking vanity stealing slily in through crannies where one would least expect it.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. vii. § 5. Into every crevice and cranny of human life.
