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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1952 (SND Vol. III). Includes material from the 1976 and 2005 supplements.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

CRANREUCH, n. Also in forms cranreugh, -creuch, -ruch, -reuth, -druch, -droch; craunroch, craunreuch, crannreuch; cranra (Rnf. 1813 G. MacIndoe Wandering Muse 126). Hoar-frost (Sc. 1825 Jam.², crandruch; Sc. 1911 S.D.D.; Abd.¹⁴ 1916, cranreuth; Bnff.², Abd.², Ags.¹⁷, Arg.¹, Lnk.¹¹, Kcb.¹ 1940). Also used fig. [′krɑnrux, -(d)rʌx, -drɔx, -rjʌx, -rəθ, ′krɒnrɔx]Sc. 1740 Scots Mag. (Oct.) 462:
The winter now doth cauldly glowr, And crandroch spreads the meadows o'er.Sc. 1914 R. B. Cunninghame Graham Sc. Stories 101:
The snow drifted half a yard upon the ground, the trees all white with cranruch like the sugar on a cake.Ags. 1816 G. Beattie John o' Arnha' (1826) 30:
Full eighty winters thick hae spread Their cranreughs o'er my palsied head.Ags. 1993 Mary McIntosh in Joy Hendry Chapman 74-5 113:
"He didnae hae a uniform though, he took his anorak wi him. He'll no be cauld wull he? Aa that cranreuch ootside, he'll be cauld."m.Sc. 1982 Olive Fraser in Hamish Brown Poems of the Scottish Hills 93:
Nae fit gangs ayont Caiplich,
Nae herd in the cranreuch bricht.
The troot o' the water o' Caiplich
Dwells deep the nicht. m.Sc. 1988 William Neill Making Tracks 25:
Blythe nou wha tholed the wintertide
its crannreuch cauld an lang.
Green, green the shaws on braw Kenside
an sweet the laverock's sang. em.Sc. 1991 Neil R. MacCallum in Tom Hubbard The New Makars 160:
Barin til the bleffarts
The sleet and the rain
And craunreuch tae
Throu weet and dry,
Yer haunds, alane
White and unprotectit. Slg. 1932 W. D. Cocker Poems 36:
It was a winter nicht, the mune Shone cheery in the lift abune, An' cranreuch pouther'd a' the grun'.Peb. 1802 C. Findlater Agric. Peb. 6:
A low creeping mist, or hoar-frost (called provincially rhyme or cranreugh), in a dead calm, particularly after a tract of rainy weather, is seen to settle, after sunsetting, upon lands of this description.w.Sc. 1866 R. W. Buchanan London Poems 227:
He . . . tried tender words, but they were spent Upon a heart where the cold crancreuch grew.wm.Sc. 1988 Scotsman 16 Jan :
A patchy cranreuch along the burn banks there was, and a crickle of frost in the grass,... Ayr. (?1786) publ. 1799 Burns Jolly Beggars (Cent. ed.) Recit. i.:
When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte, And infant frosts begin to bite, In hoary cranreuch drest.

Hence cranreuchie, craunrochie, adj., frosty, lit. and fig.w.Sc. 1821 in Edb. Mag. (April) 352:
Whar's the leefu-hairted Caledonian wha wad be driech in drawing to gar the wallot [faded] skaud o' our mither-tounge shyne like the rouky gleemoch in a craunrochie morning?Lnk. a.1854 W. Watson Poems (1877) 205:
Yet, when a true brither, like kin' Willie Mardock, Tak's note o' this cranreuchie pow.