Crawley

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A large town in the county of West Sussex in southern England, located south of London near Gatwick Airport
2. An English town in West Sussex, situated in the south of England close to the London area and Gatwick Airport
3. A settlement in the English county of West Sussex, lying near Gatwick Airport in the south of England

Etymology: Crawley is a place name rather than a common noun, and its history lies in the English landscape. The name comes from Old English "crāwan lēah", meaning "clearing of the crows" (the first word is the genitive plural of "crāwe", "crow"), with "lēah" denoting a wood or a clearing within one. Many English place names built on "lēah" survive today, often as "-ley" or "-leigh", and "Crawley" is one of them. The word therefore began as a plain description of a spot where crows gathered or nested, and it has been attached to a settlement ever since. Its surviving form shows how Old English compounds were worn down over centuries: the "-lēah" element became the unstressed "-ley" sound that sits at the end of so many English towns.