Other forms: crannies
A cranny is a small narrow opening in a wall or a rock. Big enough for a coin, a plant or a spider.
The word almost never appears alone, and it lives in the phrase every nook and cranny, meaning every last part of a place, however small. That is where nearly everybody meets it. On its own it is used in descriptive writing about walls, cliffs and old buildings, where plants take root in a cranny. Its close relatives are crevice, which is deeper, and chink, which lets light through.
1nouncrannyA small narrow gap in a wall or rock.
“Ferns grew from every cranny in the stonework.”
A cranny is a little notch. Old French cren meant a notch or a fissure, from crener, to notch or split, and English added a diminutive ending to make it small.
Proto-Celtic
*krīnos — decayed, withered
Vulgar Latin
*crinō — split, break
Medieval Latin
crenō — split
Old French
cran
Middle English
crany
English, today
cranny
Built from
From Middle English crany, crani (“cranny”), apparently a diminutive of cran (+ -y), from Old French cran, cren (“notch, fissure”), a derivative of crener (“to notch, split”), from Medieval Latin crenō (“split”), from Vulgar Latin crinō (“split, break”), of obscure origin; according to Watkins, of cel-gau - origin, from Proto-Celtic krīnos (“decayed, withered”). Despite a spurious use in Pliny, connection to Latin crēna (“notch, incision”) is doubtful. Instead, probably of gem - or cel - origin. Compare Old High German chrinna (“notch, groove, crevice”), gsw Krinne (“small crack, channel, groove”), Low German karn (“notch, groove, crevice, cranny”), Old Irish ara-chrinin (“to perish, decay”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA