local. Also 5 carnok, 8 carnock, 6–7 cornock, 7 cornook. [App. another form of CRANNOCK, crennoc, one or the other being due to metathesis of r.
Perhaps of Welsh origin; the Welsh form being crynog, which, according to Silvan Evans, may be for *cyrnog conical heap, from cwrn cone. A parallel form cyrnen, conical heap, is common in many parts of Wales. This change of *cyrnog, crynog in Welsh would, if certain, account for the carn-, curn-, and cran-, cren-, cryn- forms in Eng. The Welsh crynog appears to be known as a measure only in Glamorganshire and part of Monmouthshire.]
An obsolete (or nearly obsolete) dry measure formerly used in the West of England, from Cheshire to Somersetshire, and in parts of South Wales.
Its capacity varied according to place and commodity; for corn it was usually 4 bushels = a ‘coomb’; for wheat sometimes 3 bushels. For coal and lime, it varied locally; in Glamorganshire in 1815, from 10 to 12 or 15 bushels (Davies, Agric. of S. Wales, II. 172), and the Cheshire crenneke or crynoke of salt in the 16th c. appears to have been at least as much.
1479. Office of Mayor of Bristol, in Eng. Gilds (1870), 426. That every sak [of colys] be tryed & provid to be & holde a carnok.
1509. Will of R. Jamys (Somerset Ho.). Quatuor modios frumenti de mensura de Chepstow, anglice a Cornock.
1638. Penkethman, Artach., D ij. A Cornook conteineth 256 Pounds.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 260/2. A Cornock, is 2 Strikes or 4 Bushels.
1708. J. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. III. ii. (1743), 157. Four bushels [make] the Comb or Curnock.
1727. W. Mather, Yng. Man’s Comp., 198. 4 Bushels a Comb, or Curnock, 2 Curnocks a Quarter.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Dry Measure.
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric., 1123–7 (in O. C. & F. Words, 170), Curnock (Worcestershire), of barley or oats, 4 bushels; of wheat, 9 score 10 lbs. = 3 bushels.
