Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CRA'DLE, n. [Sax. cradel; W. cryd, a rocking or shaking, a cradle; crydu, to shake, or tremble; crydian, crydiaw, id.; from rhyd, a moving; Ir. creatham, to shake; Gr. κραδαω, id., and to swing; Heb. חרד, to tremble or shake, to palpitate; Syr. in Ethp., to rub or scrape. Without the first letter, W. rhyd, Heb. Ch. Eth. רעד, to tremble, to shake. In Ar. رَعَدَ raada, to thunder, to impress terror, to tremble; and رَادَ rada, to run hither and thither, to move one way and the other, to tremble or shake. The Arabic رَعَدَ to thunder, coincides with the Latin rudo, to roar, and the W. grydiaiw, to utter a rough sound, to shout, whoop or scream, grydwst, a murmur, from gryd, a shout or whoop, and this from rhyd; so that crydiaw and grydiaw are from the same root, and from this we have cry, and cry implies roughness, coinciding with the Syriac, supra, to scrape, whence grate, gride, &c. See Owen's Welsh Dictionary, and Castle's Heptaglot.]

1. A movable machine of various constructions, placed on circular pieces of board, for rocking children or infirm persons to sleep, for alleviating pain, or giving moderate exercise. Me let the tender office long engage, / To rock the cradle of reposing age. – Pope.
2. Infancy. From the cradle, is from the state of infancy; in the cradle, in a state of infancy.
3. That part of the stock of a cross-bow, where the bullet is put. – Encyc.
4. In surgery, a case in which a broken leg is laid, after being set. – Encyc.
5. In ship-building, a frame placed under the bottom of a ship for launching. It supports the ship and slides down the timbers or passage called the ways. – Encyc.
6. A standing bedstead for wounded seamen. – Mar. Dict.
7. In engraving, an instrument formed of steel, and resembling a chisel, with one sloping side, used in scraping mezzotintos, and preparing the plate. – Encyc.
8. In husbandry, a frame of wood, with long bending teeth, to which is fastened a sythe, for cutting and laying oats and other grain in a swath.