Cranbury

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A proper name borne by a village in Hampshire, England, and a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey
2. The name of a rural village in southern England and also of a small township in central New Jersey, United States
3. A place name applied to a village in Hampshire, England, as well as a township in New Jersey, USA

Etymology: Cranbury is best known as a place name: a village in Hampshire, England, and a township in New Jersey, both named after a settlement whose name is older than the word's use as a surname or noun. The English village name appears in medieval records and is generally read as Old English "cran" (crane, the bird) plus "burh," a fortified place or manor. So the likely sense is something like "crane stronghold," though the exact meaning of the first element in that setting is not certain. Cranbury is easily confused with cranberry, but the two are not related. Cranberry comes from an earlier name for the fruit, probably from Low German or Dutch, and English speakers reshaped it around "berry" and, in folk usage, the bird, since the plant's flowers were thought to resemble a crane's head. The shared "cran" is a coincidence of spelling.