crayfish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English crevis, also crevise,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} borrowed from Old French crevice (“crayfish”),^[2][4][7][6] a variant of escrevice, the source of French écrevisse.^[2][4][7] The Old French word is probably from Frankish *krebitja,^[2][7][1] a diminutive related to Old High German krebiz (“crab, shellfish”) and German Krebs,^[2][7][5] and to Old Saxon krebit and Dutch kreeft;^[7] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Germanic *krabitaz (“crab”).^[1][8] It is thus related to crab, from Old English crabba.^[2][9][7] The modern form is an alteration of crevis under the influence of fish,^{[2][3][5][10]} which Barnhart explains as a confusion of the word's last syllable with fish;^[11][3] it was established by the 16th century.^[2][10][9] The word has nothing to do with crevice, which is from Old French crever (“to burst, split”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A European freshwater crayfish: the form crevis is recorded in 1311–12, in an account written in Latin that lists sperling, crayfish and lobsters.^[4][3][11] Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century,^[2] and Dictionary.com to 1350–1400.^[13] In the early 15th century the Medulla glosses Latin cancer as a creveys or a crab.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Like German Krebs, the word was at first a general name for the larger edible crustaceans, and could also mean a crab; both uses are obsolete.^[14][5][6] From the 15th century it was narrowed to the freshwater crustacean that looks like a small lobster,^[14][6] and since the 18th century London fishmongers and the British coast used it for the spiny lobster.^[14][6] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the river lobster".^[15] Hoad explains that the word was at first stressed on its last syllable and developed two lines of forms: crevis gave crevish and then crayfish in the 16th century, while cravis gave cravish and crafish (16th century) and then crawfish (17th century), the form that survives in the United States.^[6][9] In Britain crayfish is usual for the freshwater animal and crawfish for the spiny lobster.^[5] In South Africa it names a marine crustacean, a sense recorded from 1853.^[14] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins notes that the spelling was changed because people took the animal, which lives in water, to be a fish.^[12] The verb, to move like a crayfish or to act in a cowardly or scheming way, is Australian and dates from 1900, in Henry Lawson.^[16][5]

Timeline

• 1311–12 – crevis, a European freshwater crayfish.^[4][3]
• first half of the 15th century – a general name for the larger edible crustaceans (now obsolete).^[14]
• c. 1440 – a name for large crustaceans other than crabs, including the lobster (now obsolete).^[14]
• c. 1460 – the freshwater crayfish, Astacus fluviatilis.^[14]
• 1509 – a crab (now obsolete).^[14]
• 1555 – the spelling crefisshe, altered after fish.^[11][3]
• 1748 – the spiny lobster.^[14]
• 1853 – in South Africa, an edible marine crustacean.^[14]
• 1900 – verb, in Australia, to move like a crayfish; to act in a cowardly or scheming way.^[16][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A freshwater decapod crustacean that looks like a small lobster: We caught crayfish under the rocks in the creek.^[17][18][5]
2. The spiny lobster, or a similar marine crustacean.^[18][17][5]
3. (obsolete) Any large edible crustacean, formerly including the crab.^[14][5]

Verb

1. (Australia) To move like a crayfish; to act in a cowardly or scheming way.^[16][5]

Word family

• sea crayfish

Related words

• crab
• crawfish
• crevice
• crevette

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster