Obs. Also 7 craye. [a. F. craie:OF. creie:L. crēta chalk. Also in F. in sense 2, for which another name is pierre stone.]
1. Chalk.
14[?]. Recipes, in Rel. Antiq., I. 52. Do tharto cray that thir parchemeners wirkes withall.
2. A disease of hawks, in which the excrements become excessively hard and are passed with difficulty.
c. 1450. Bk. Hawking, in Rel. Ant., I. 294. An yvell y-callyd the cray, that is when an hawke may not mute. Ibid., 295. The Cray comyth of wasch mete, that is wasch in hote water, in defaute of hote mete.
1575. Turberv., Faulconrie, 311. The Stone or Cray.
1618. Latham, 2nd Bk. Falconry (1633), 134. This disease that wee call the Craye, is of an exiccatiue or astringent qualitie.