Definition of: cradle

(krād′l) noun
1. A rocking or swinging bed for an infant.
2. A place of birth; origin.
3. A scythe with fingers that catch the grain when cut.
4. An arch of thin wood or wire, to keep bed-clothes from pressing on a tender part of the body; also a light case in which an injured limb can be swung.
5. Engin, a A frame, usually of heavy timber, for sustaining some heavy object or structure, as a ship on a marine railway or in drydock. b A scaffolding suspended by ropes.
6. A support for the frame or keel or an airship or dirigible under construction.
7. Mining A box on rockers, for washing auriferous dirt; a rocker; cradle-rocker.
8. Brit. A cage swung on gimbals in which miners ascend and descend a shaft.
9. A coarse ribbing on a vaulted surface that is to be plastered.
10. A currycomb-shaped tool for making mezzotint grounds on a metal plate; a rocker,
11 A life car or basket running on a line, to bring persons from a wreck to the shore.
12. Mil. The frame in a gun carriage in which the gun moves during a recoil.
13. The double-pronged, electrically connected holder for the operating unit of a handset telephone.
—v. ·dled, ·dling v.t.
1. To put into or rock in or as in a cradle; soothe.
2. To nurse in infancy; nurture.
3. To cut or reap, as grain, with a cradle.
4. To draw onto or transport in a cradle, as a ship.
5. Mining To wash, as gold-bearing gravel, in a cradle.
—v.i.
6. To lie or rest in or as in a cradle.
7. To cut or reap.
—to rob the cradle Colloq. To marry or take as a sweet-heart one much younger than oneself. [OE cradol]