cradle

plural cradles

1. A bed or cot for a baby, oscillating on rockers or swinging on pivots.

   the cradle that received thee at thy birth

   1782, William Cowper, Expostulation

   2 more examples

   No sooner was I crept out of my cradle / But I was made a king, at nine months old.

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ix]

   Hush-a-by, baby, upon the tree-top; / When the wind blows the cradle will rock; / When the bough breaks the cradle will fall; / Down will come cradle and baby and all.

   1805, Songs for the Nursery, page 5

2. figurativelyThe place of origin, or in which anything is nurtured or protected in the earlier period of existence.

   a cradle of crime

   1 more example

   the cradle of liberty

3. figurativelyInfancy, or very early life.

   from the cradle to the grave

   2 more examples

   from their cradles bred together

   c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   a form of worship in which they had been educated from their cradle

   1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the [Sheldonian] Theater

4. An implement consisting of a broad scythe for cutting grain, with a set of long fingers parallel to the scythe, designed to receive the grain, and to lay it evenly in a swath.
5. A tool used in mezzotint engraving, which, by a rocking motion, raises burrs on the surface of the plate, so as to prepare the ground.
6. A framework of timbers, or iron bars, moving upon ways or rollers, used to support, lift, or carry ships or other vessels, heavy guns, etc., as up an inclined plane, or across a strip of land, or in launching a ship.
7. A case for a broken or dislocated limb.
8. A frame to keep the bedclothes from contact with the sensitive parts of an injured person.
9. businessA machine on rockers, used in washing out auriferous earth.

   Rough men brought pickle bottles full of nuggets. Mysterious dirty-looking calico bags were opened, disclosing small quantities of water-worn flaky gold, which had been washed out of the beds of rivers with a cradle.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 146

   Synonyms: rocker

10. businessA suspended scaffold used in shafts.
11. businessA ribbing for vaulted ceilings and arches intended to be covered with plaster.

    A strong iron bar is fixed at the top of each cradle, to which the suspending chains are attached; the latter pass over the sheaves, and the cradles are kept in a horizontal position, by means of an adjusting rod placed above them

    1853, Samuel Charles Brees, The Illustrated Glossary of Practical Architecture and Civil Engineering

12. nauticalA basket or apparatus in which, when a line has been made fast to a wrecked ship from the shore, the people are brought off from the wreck.

    The cradle was ill-made. One victim fell into the sea and was lost and the ensuing delay cost three more lives.

13. A rest for the receiver of a telephone, or for certain computer hardware.

    He slammed the handset into the cradle.

    Synonyms: rest

14. contact jugglingA hand position allowing a contact ball to be held steadily on the back of the hand.
15. A mechanical device for tilting and decanting a bottle of wine.

present singular third person cradles · participle present cradling · participle past cradled · past cradled

1. transitiveTo contain in or as if in a cradle.
2. transitiveTo rock (a baby to sleep).
3. transitiveTo wrap protectively, to hold gently and protectively.

   cradling the injured man’s head in her arms

   1 more example

   The little girl was left alone in her tiny bedroom, cradling her dead hamster.

   2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN

4. To lull or quieten, as if by rocking.
5. To nurse or train in infancy.

   He that hath been cradled in majesty will not leave the throne to play with beggars.

   1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   But are the Jewish people a nation? For two thousand years, they have been rent from the physical homeland that cradled their youth; they have been scattered over the entire earth; they have been influenced by almost every climate, culture, and nation, constituting a small minority in each country.

   1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 357

6. ball gamesTo rock the lacrosse stick back and forth in order to keep the ball in the head by means of centrifugal force.
7. To cut and lay (grain) with a cradle.
8. To transport a vessel by means of a cradle.

   Edward H[enry] Knight (1877), “Cradle”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. […], volumes I (A–GAS), New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC: “In Lombardy […] boats are cradled and transported over the grade.”

9. To put ribs across the back of (a picture), to prevent the panels from warping.