crake

noun

1. Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.
2. (obsolete)A crack; a boast.
3. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of crake.

verb

1. To cry out harshly and loudly, like a crake.

   “How still ! how very still it is, So silent it appears, E'en from its intensity, To tingle in mine ears. I hear the sheep-bell far away In the calm breathless night; The corncrake begins to crake . Crake, crake, with all its might.”

   “'How very disagreeable!' said Annie; 'perhaps the birds took it in turn to crake.'”

   “Of course, a corncrake, as its name suggests, likes to crake among the corn and hayfields, so that in fact you are unlikely ever to confuse it with the spotted crake, a bird to which dry land is almost anathema.”

2. (obsolete)To boast; to speak loudly and boastfully.

   “I hyred the to fyght agaynste Alexander, and not to crake and prate.”

   “Each man may crake of that which was his own.”

   “With him I threatned to be quite, and great things did I crake.”

   “And he that thus doth shal have smal pleasure in his awn rightwysnes, nor no gret lust to crake of his awn deserts or meryts.”