Definitions for cradles

• Definition
• Anagrams (291)

cradles cra·dle

Spelling: [kreyd-l]

IPA: /ˈkreɪd l/

Cradles is a 7 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 9 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 11 points.

You can make 291 anagrams from letters in cradles (acdelrs).

Definitions for cradles

noun

1. a small bed for an infant, usually on rockers.
2. any of various supports for objects set horizontally, as the support for the handset of a telephone.
3. the place where anything is nurtured during its early existence:
4. Agriculture. a frame of wood with a row of long curved teeth projecting above and parallel to a scythe, for laying grain in bunches as it is cut. a scythe together with the cradle in which it is set.
5. a wire or wicker basket used to hold a wine bottle in a more or less horizontal position while the wine is being served.
6. Artillery. the part of a gun carriage on which a recoiling gun slides.
7. a landing platform for ferryboats, rolling on inclined tracks to facilitate loading and unloading at different water levels.
8. Aeronautics. a docklike structure in which a rigid or semirigid airship is built or is supported during inflation.
9. Automotive. creeper (def 6).
10. Nautical. a shaped support for a boat, cast, etc.; chock. truss (def 9).
11. Shipbuilding. a moving framework on which a hull slides down the ways when launched. a built-up form on which plates of irregular form are shaped.
12. Medicine/Medical. a frame that prevents the bedclothes from touching an injured part of a bedridden patient.
13. Mining. a box on rockers for washing sand or gravel to separate gold or other heavy metal.
14. an engraver's tool for laying mezzotint grounds.
15. Painting. a structure of wooden strips attached to the back of a panel, used as a support and to prevent warping.

Idioms

1. rob the cradle, Informal. to marry, court, or date a person much younger than oneself.

verb (used with object)

1. to hold gently or protectively.
2. to place or rock in or as in an infant's cradle.
3. to nurture during infancy.
4. to receive or hold as a cradle.
5. to cut (grain) with a cradle.
6. to place (a vessel) on a cradle.
7. Mining. to wash (sand or gravel) in a cradle; rock.
8. Painting. to support (a panel) with a cradle.

verb (used without object)

1. to lie in or as if in a cradle.
2. to cut grain with a cradle scythe.

Origin of cradles

before 1000; Middle English cradel, Old English cradol; akin to Old High German cratto basket

Examples for cradles

They had cared for him in his cradle; he followed them to their graves.

Emilia looked as innocent as when Hope had tended her in the cradle.

You'll find him rocking the cradle of Tippoo Wellington, my youngest son!

“The hand that rocks the cradle, moves the world,” as Breivik said to the forensic psychiatrists.

His books include Up From the cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II and a novel, Last of the Red Hot Poppas.

Doctors would not let the cradle of Civilization come to this.

Both Linda Perilstein, executive director of cradle of Hope, and Leslie Case of Spence-Chapin, both declined to comment.

Rock, rock, went the cradle, and mother and child slept; but alas!

Her life, claimed by the open air, had its reward—the saddle is no cradle for weaklings.

When it comes to art, we are taught from the cradle that copying is wrong.