cranesbill
US/ˈkɹeɪnz.bɪl/
cranesbill noun: any flowering plant of the genus Geranium found throughout the temperate zone.
Noun
cranesbill (plural cranesbills)
- Any flowering plant of the genus Geranium found throughout the temperate zone.
- Sometimes called cranesbills, geraniums make up a large and widely used genus, greatly loved by gardeners from England to the United States to Australia.2007, Holly Kerr Forsyth, The Constant Gardener, The Miegunyah Press, →ISBN, page 93
- Synonyms:
- geranium
- A pair of long-beaked forceps.
Synonyms of cranesbill
Forms of cranesbill
| plural | cranesbills |
|---|
Origin of cranesbill
First attested in the 1500s. Calque of Dutch craenhals; cognate with German Kranichhals and Middle Low German kraneshals, all likely derived from Latin geranium, from Ancient Greek γέρᾰνος (gérănos, “crane”). By surface analysis, crane + -s- + bill. The flowering plant is so called because of the lengthened appendage of the seed vessel.
Words formed from cranesbill
- Carolina cranesbill
- pencilled cranesbill
- spotted cranesbill
Questions about cranesbill
- What does cranesbill mean?
- Cranesbill means any flowering plant of the genus Geranium found throughout the temperate zone.
- What part of speech is cranesbill?
- Cranesbill is a noun.
- How do you pronounce cranesbill?
- Cranesbill is pronounced /ˈkɹeɪnz.bɪl/ (US).
- What is the plural of cranesbill?
- The plural of cranesbill is cranesbills.
Words near cranesbill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cranesbill (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-cranesbill.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cranesbill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cranesbill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.