cradle (kradl)

[ E. crate and ult. grate and grilll ), and to E. hurdle: see crate, grate2, grill, hurdle.] 1. A little bed or cot for an infant, usually mounted on rockers, or balanced or suspended in such a manner as to admit of a rocking or swinging motion. A squyer hym [the child] bar in a litill cradell , hym be fore, vpon his horse nekke. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), ii. 296. No sooner was I crept out of my cradle But I was made a king, at nine months old. Shak., 2 Hen. VI., iv. 9. This child is not mine as the first was;... Yet it lies in my little one's cradle , And sits in my little one's chair. Lowell, The Changeling. Hence-2. The place where any person or thing is nurtured in the earlier stage of existence: as, Asia, the cradle of the human race; the cradle of liberty, etc.-3. A standing bedstead for wounded seamen.-4. A name of varıous mechanical contrivances. (a) That part of the stock of a cro bow where the mi ile is put. (6) In surg.. (1) A case se in which a broken leg is laid after being set. (2) A semicircular case of thin wood, or strips of wood, used for preventing the contact of the bedclothes with the injured part, in cases of wounds, fractures, etc. (c) In ship - building, a frame placed under the bottom of a ship for launching. It supports the ship, and slides down the timbers or pa age called the ways. (d) A frame placed under the bottom of a ship to support her while being hauled up on a marine railway. (e) In engraving, a steel tool shaped like a currycomb, with sharp teeth, used in laying mezzotint grounds. Also called rocker. (f) In