corncrake
/ˈkɔɹnˌkɹeɪk/noun
corncrake is a noun meaning “A bird of the rail family, Crex crex, that breeds in meadows and arable farmland across Europe and western Asia, migrating to Africa in winter” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-O-R-N-C-R-A-K-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 42 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of corncrake is corncrakes.
What does corncrake mean?
noun
- 1
A bird of the rail family, Crex crex, that breeds in meadows and arable farmland across Europe and western Asia, migrating to Africa in winter.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce corncrake?
- UK /ˈkɔːnkɹeɪk/
- US /ˈkɔɹnˌkɹeɪk/
Corncrake has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-corncrake.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of corncrake
- corncrakes plural
- corn crake
- corn-crake
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is corncrake?
Corncrake appears about once in every 42 million words in written English, the 199,120th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Corncrake in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the bird Crex crex:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | râle des genêts, roi des cailles, roi caille |
| German | Wachtelkönig, Wiesenralle |
| Portuguese | codornizão |
| Spanish | guión de codornices, rey de codornices |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does corncrake come from?
From corn + crake.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).