Also 7 kromlech, 8–9 cromleh, 9 cromleqc. [a. Welsh cromlech (in Irish and Gael. cromleac, -leachd), f. crom, fem. of crwm ‘crooked, bowed, bent, curved, concave, convex’ + llech (flat) stone.)]
A structure of prehistoric age consisting of a large flat or flattish unhewn stone resting horizontally on three or more stones set upright; found in various parts of the British Isles, esp. in Wales, Devonshire, Cornwall and Ireland. Also applied to similar structures in other parts of the world.
This is the application of the word in Welsh. In Brittany such structures are called dolmen (= table-stones), while cromlech is the name of a circle of standing stones. As a common noun cromlech is known in Welsh only from c. 1700, but as a proper name, or part of one, it occurs in Owen’s Pembrokeshire, and in several place-names believed to be ancient. In Cornish it is known earlier; a grant in Bp. Grandison’s Register at Exeter (1328–1370), purporting to be from Æthelstan to Buryan, 943 (Birch, Cartul. Sax. II. 527), mentions in the boundaries ‘fossa quæ tendit circa Rescel cromlegh.’ See Silvan Evans Welsh Dict.
1603. Owen, Pembrokesh., I. xxvi. (1892), 251. An other thinge worth the noteinge is the stone called Maen y gromlegh vpon Pentre Jevan lande; yt is a huge and massie stone mounted on highe and sett on the toppes of iij other highe stones, pitched standing vpright in the grounde.
1695. J. Davies, in Camden’s Brit. (ed. Gibson), 676. In Bod-Owyr … we find a remarkable Kromlech.… These … are thought to have received the name of Cromlecheu, for that the Table or covering-Stone is, on the upper side, somewhat gibbous or convex.
1740. Stukeley, Stonehenge, vii. 33. It was one of those stones which the Welsh call Crwm-Lecheu or bowing stones.
1766. Ann. Reg., 297. The huge, broad, flat stones, raised upon other stones set up on end for that purpose, now called Cromlechs.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), I. iii. 92. The Cromlech, which is now almost universally recognised as a sepulchral monument.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, xi. 181. Scattered over its wide and arid plains, are cromlechs, dolmens, menhirs, [etc.].
