cran
noun1
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music 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.
cran
nounEtymology Evidently from, or at least influenced by Goidelic; compare Scottish Gaelic crann (“lot, measure of herring, tree, etc.”).
1
Obsolete 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).
- 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.1800 Dec, Sir Richard Phillips, The Monthly magazine, volume 10, number 66, page 486:
- His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish, / Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.1938, Louis MacNeice, Bagpipe Music:
2 more examples
- […] And fish the knolls on the North Sea Holes And try your luck at the North Shields Gut With a catch of a hundred cran.1960, Ewan MacColl, BBC radio ballad, Singing the Fishing:
- But I've fished a lifetime, boy and man, And the final trawl scarcely makes a cran.1970s, Archie Fisher, The Final Trawl: