Cran
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A measure of herrings, either imprecise or sometimes legally specified. It has oftentimes been about 37½ imperial gallons, or ~750 herrings on average (up to 1200 or even ~2500). obsolete
"Very flattering indeed has been the success of the fishermen; and many boats have come in loaded, averaging thirty or forty crans each (every cran estimated at 1,000 herrings), and disposed of their cargoes at nine shillings per cran; but the price has been since raised to fifteen shillings."
- 2 An embellishment played on the lowest note of a chanter of a bagpipe, consisting of a series of grace notes produced by rapid sequential lifting of the fingers of the lower hand.
- 3 Alternative form of qiran. alt-of, alternative
- 4 a capacity unit used for measuring fresh herring wordnet
- 5 A barrel made to hold such a measure. broadly, obsolete, rare
- 1 Cranfield University, used especially following post-nominal letters indicating status as a graduate.
- 2 Acronym of Comprehensive R Archive Network. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
- 3 A river, Rivière du Cran (Cran River), in Le Domaine-du-Roy Regional County Municipality, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, Quebec, Canada, a tributary of the Ashuapmushuan River.
Example
More examples"Very flattering indeed has been the success of the fishermen; and many boats have come in loaded, averaging thirty or forty crans each (every cran estimated at 1,000 herrings), and disposed of their cargoes at nine shillings per cran; but the price has been since raised to fifteen shillings."
Etymology
Evidently from, or at least influenced by Goidelic; compare Scottish Gaelic crann (“lot, measure of herring, tree, etc.”).
Shortened form of Cranfield taking all the letters of the first syllable and the first consonant of the second syllable.
Related phrases
More for "cran"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.