Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A garland carried before the bier of a maiden and hung over her grave.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A garland carried before the bier of a maiden.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • V. i.255 (319,2) Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants] I have been informed by an anonymous correspondent, that _crants_ is the German word for _garlands_, and I suppose it was retained by us from the Saxons.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • Well, here I am tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with ‘virgin crants and maiden strewments.’

    Dracula 2003

  • Well, here I am to-night, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with "virgin crants and maiden strewments."

    Dracula 1897

Comments

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  • A garland carried before the bier of a maiden.Obs.

    Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants, Her maiden strewments.--Shakespeare

    June 17, 2008

  • The mourners in silence advance
    Behind the wee bier and the crants.
    Their minds are so laden
    With grief for the maiden
    They move as though caught in a trance.

    January 3, 2016