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Origin and history of crag

crag(n.)

"a steep, rugged rock; rough, broken, projecting rock, especially a sea-cliff," early 14c. (as a place-name element from c. 1200), probably from a Celtic source akin to Old Irish crec "rock," and carrac "cliff," Welsh craig "rock, stone," Manx creg, Breton krag. A cragsman (1815) is "one dexterous in climbing cliffs overhanging the sea to get the eggs of sea-birds."

also from early 14c.

Entries linking to crag

craggy(adj.)

mid-15c., "full of crags;" see crag + -y (2). From 1560s as "hard, rough, rugged." Related: Craggily; cragginess.

Craig

surname, 12c., a Scottish form of Cragg, literally "dweller by the steep rocks," from crag. As a masc. given name it began to be popular in U.S. 1930s, peaked 1960s.

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    Trends of crag

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

    More to explore

    scar
    cliff] 1670s, "bare and broken rocky face of a cliff or on the side of a mountain;" earlier scarre "naked, detached rock or crag...
    mull
    "promontory" (in Scottish place names), late 14c., perhaps from Old Norse muli "a jutting crag, projecting ridge (between...
    lover
    Lover's quarrel is from 1660s; lover's leap, usually involving a local crag and a fanciful story, is by 1712; Lover's Lane...
    gnarled
    a variant of knurled, from Middle English knar "knob, knot in wood, protruding mass on a tree" (late 14c.), earlier "a crag...
    hammer
    The Old Norse cognate hamarr meant "stone, crag" (it's common in English place names), and suggests an original sense of...
    rock
    of mineral matter], Middle English rokke, roche "stone as a substance; large rocky formation, rocky height or outcrop, crag...
    prod
    1530s, "to poke with a stick," of uncertain origin; possibly [Barnhart, Century Dictionary] a variant of brod, from Middle English brodden "to goad," from Old Norse broddr "shaft, spike" (see brad), or perhaps imitative [OED]. Compare dialectal prog "pointed instrument for poking
    drop
    Middle English drope, from Old English dropa "a small, spherical mass of liquid," from Proto-Germanic *drupon (source also of Old Saxon dropo, Old Norse dropi, Dutch drop, Old High German tropfo, German Tropfen (n.)); see drop (v.). Sense of "minute quantity of anything, least po
    cliff
    Old English clif "steep and rugged face of a rocky mass, promontory, steep slope," from Proto-Germanic *kliban (source also of Old Saxon clif, Old Norse klif, Middle Dutch klippe, Dutch klip, Old High German klep, German Klippe "cliff, promontory, steep rock"). Clift has been a v
    dyslexia
    "a difficulty in reading due to a condition of the brain," 1885, from German dyslexie (1883), from Greek dys- "bad, abnormal, difficult" (see dys-) + lexis "word" (taken as "reading"), from legein "speak" (from PIE root *leg- (1) "to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning "to

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    Dictionary entries near crag
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