Dictionary

cragsman en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (UK) audio
• /ˈkɹæɡzˌmɛn/ (General-American)
• /ˈkɹæɡzmɛn/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈkɹæɡzmən/ (General-American, Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From crag (“rocky outcrop; rugged steep rock or cliff”) + -s- (genitival interfix equivalent to -’s) + -man.

Meanings

1. A (skillful) male climber of crags.
   • Let us suppose that we are doing a mountain walk to the village which is our home. At mid-day we come to the top of a cliff where we are, in space, very near it because it is just below us. We could drop a stone into it. But as we are no cragsmen we can't get down. We must go a long way round; five miles, maybe. 1960, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, “Introduction”, in The Four Loves, London: Geoffrey Bles, →OCLC, page 13:
   • Francie o'Fowlsheugh, and he was the best craigsman that ever speel'd heugh, (mair by token, he brake his neck upon the Dunbuy of Slaines,) wadua hae ventured upon the Halket-head craigs after sun-down— […] 1816, [Walter Scott], chapter VII, in The Antiquary. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 166:
   • A boyhood spent on the cliffs at Kirkcaple had made me a bold cragsman, and the porphyry of the Rooirand clearly gave excellent holds. 1910, John Buchan, “My Journey to the Winter-veld”, in Prester John, London; Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, →OCLC, page 86:
   • A skilled cragsman himself, he told his officers that he believed that a determined party of Gurkhas and other experienced climbers could reach the enemy by this route. 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, London: Folio Society, published 2010, →OCLC, page 424:
   • Those who "halt between two opinions," in the matter of religion, are like travellers who halt in indecision at cross-roads, with tempest and the night hurrying up behind them; […] like a cragsman, who has quitted hold on the rope by which he has let himself down from the overhanging brow of the cliff to the eagle's nest, and hesitates to spring and seize the rope in its rapidly diminishing oscillations.—Union Magazine. 1860s, The Biblical Treasury: A Collection of Scripture Illustrations, for the Use of Sunday School Teachers and Bible Students, volume VI, London: Sunday School Union, […], →OCLC, paragraph 1261, page 100:
   • Meanwhile I had become a daring cragsman, a character to which an English lad has seldom opportunities of aspiring; for in England there are neither crags nor mountains. 1851, George Borrow, chapter VIII, in Lavengro; the Scholar—the Gypsy—the Priest. […], volume I, London: John Murray […], →OCLC, page 109:
   • The cragsman was dragging a yearling kid by its hind leg. He seemed happy enough to set his own butchering duties aside to advise on the best cuts to preserve the tail and legs. 2007 October 16, J[ulie] V[ictoria] Jones, A Sword from Red Ice (Sword of Shadows; 3), New York, N.Y.: Tor, →ISBN:
   • [H]ere and there are traversed by a winding footpath like a staircase, which few but native cragsmen are venturesome enough to scale. 1922, W[illiam] Barclay, “Along the Coast”, in Banffshire (Cambridge County Geographies), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, →OCLC, page 40:

Forms

Coordinates

cragswoman · mountaineer · mountain climber · rock climber

Hypernyms

climber

Translations (2)

ka მთამსვლელი ((skillful) climber of crags) · ga ailleadóir ((skillful) climber of crags)