corn crake


noun
  1. a short-billed Eurasian rail, Crex crex, frequenting grainfields.

Origin of corn crake

1
First recorded in 1545–55

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use corn crake in a sentence

  • It is a favourite spot with the corncrake—almost the only place where you are nearly sure to hear him.

    The Hills and the Vale | Richard Jefferies
  • Somewhere a corncrake called its monotonous crek-craik; the dull, harsh sound emphasizing the utter stillness.

  • A farmer at Aikerness in Orkney, about midwinter, in demolishing a mud-wall, found a Corncrake in the midst of it.

  • From a field of young wheat hard by I heard the harsh, grating note of the corncrake.

    A Book of Ghosts | Sabine Baring-Gould
  • A restless corncrake cries among the long grass of the next meadow that stands waiting for the scythe.

    In the West Country | Francis A. Knight

British Dictionary definitions for corncrake

corncrake

/ (ˈkɔːnˌkreɪk) /


noun
  1. a common Eurasian rail, Crex crex, of fields and meadows, with a buff speckled plumage and reddish wings

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012