Krake
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Rare form of Kraken. form-of, rare
"But the most horrible and hideous monster, that the fables of the Norway fishers have invented, is the krake, sea-horse, or hafgufu, which nobody ever pretends to have seen entire; yet the fishers give out, that when they find a place which is usually 80 or 100 fathoms deep, to be at certain times only 20 or 30, and see also a multitude of fishes allured to the spot, by a delicious exhalation which this creature emits, they conclude that they are over a krake; then they make haste to secure a good draught of fishes, but take care to observe when the soundings grow shallower, for then the monster is rising."
Example
More examples"But the most horrible and hideous monster, that the fables of the Norway fishers have invented, is the krake, sea-horse, or hafgufu, which nobody ever pretends to have seen entire; yet the fishers give out, that when they find a place which is usually 80 or 100 fathoms deep, to be at certain times only 20 or 30, and see also a multitude of fishes allured to the spot, by a delicious exhalation which this creature emits, they conclude that they are over a krake; then they make haste to secure a good draught of fishes, but take care to observe when the soundings grow shallower, for then the monster is rising."
Etymology
Borrowed from Norwegian krake.
More for "krake"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.