Cranesbill
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any flowering plant of the genus Geranium found throughout the temperate zone.
"Sometimes called cranesbills, geraniums make up a large and widely used genus, greatly loved by gardeners from England to the United States to Australia."
- 2 any of numerous geraniums of the genus Geranium wordnet
- 3 A pair of long-beaked forceps.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Sometimes called cranesbills, geraniums make up a large and widely used genus, greatly loved by gardeners from England to the United States to Australia."
Etymology
First attested in the 1500s. Calque of Dutch craenhals; cognate with German Kranichhals and Middle Low German kraneshals, all likely derived from Latin geranium, from Ancient Greek γέρᾰνος (gérănos, “crane”). By surface analysis, crane + -s- + bill. The flowering plant is so called because of the lengthened appendage of the seed vessel.
Related phrases
More for "cranesbill"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.