crane: [OE] Crane is a widespread Indo- European bird-name: related forms such as Latin grūs, Greek géranos (source of English geranium, also known as crane’s-bill, from the long pointed ‘beak’ of its fruit), and Welsh garan point to a prehistoric Indo-European base *ger-, possibly imitative of the bird’s raucous call. The resemblance of a crane lowering its long neck to feed or drink to the operation of a lifting apparatus with a long jib led to the application of crane to the latter in the 14th century (French grue and German kran show a similar semantic development). Cranberry [17] is a borrowing (originally American) of German cranbeere, literally ‘craneberry’, so named from the stamens, which supposedly resemble a beak. => cranberry, geranium, pedigree
crane (n.)
Old English cran "large wading bird," common Germanic (cognates: Old Saxon krano, Old High German krano, German Kranich, and, with unexplained change of consonant, Old Norse trani), from PIE *gere-no-, suffixed form of root *gere- (2) "to cry hoarsely," also the name of the crane (cognates: Greek geranos, Latin grus, Welsh garan, Lithuanian garnys "heron, stork"). Thus the name is perhaps an echo of its cry in ancient ears. Metaphoric use for "machine with a long arm" is first attested late 13c. (a sense also in equivalent words in German and Greek).
crane (v.)
"to stretch (the neck)," 1799, from crane (n.). Related: Craned; craning.