crayon

See also: Crayon and crayón

English

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crayon

Wikipedia

Etymology

Etymology tree

Latin crēta

French craie

Proto-Indo-European *-ōder.

Proto-Indo-European *-Hōder.?

Latin -ō

Frankishinflu.

Old French -on

Middle French -on

French -on

French crayonbor.

English crayon

Borrowed from French crayon (“pencil”), from craie (“chalk”) +‎ -on (diminutive suffix), from Latin crēta (“chalk, clay”), perhaps from crētus.

Pronunciation

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!
Particularly: “audio IPA”

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɒn/, [ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɒ̃]
IPA^(key): (Received Pronunciation, less common in the US) /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ən/^[1]^[2]^[3]
(Standard Southern British) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹɛj.ɔn/, /ˈkɹɛj.ən/
- Audio (Southern England): (file)
(US, without the cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɑn/, /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɔn/^[3]
- Audio (New York City): (file)
IPA^(key): (US, cot–caught merger) /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɑn/^[3]
- Audio (Southern California): (file)
(US, especially Northeastern US, Midwestern US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹæn/, [ˈkɹɛə̯n ~ ˈkɹeə̯n]^[3]
- Audio (US): (file)
(US, less common, chiefly Philadelphia, New Jersey, sometimes Southern US, sometimes Midwestern US, sometimes Western US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹaʊ̯n/, [ˈkɹɛɔ̯n], [ˈkɹæɔ̯n]^[3]
- Audio (Virginia): (file)
(Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹæɪ̯.ɔn/
(Dublin) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹeː.än/, /ˈkɹɛ.jän/
Rhymes: -eɪɒn, -eɪən, -æn, -aʊn
Hyphenation: cray‧on

Noun

crayon (plural crayons)

A stick of colored chalk or wax used for drawing.
Hyponym: Conté
- 1955, Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon, page 39:
  But, luckily, he kept his wits and his purple crayon.
(obsolete) A colored pencil, a colouring pencil
Synonyms: pencil crayon (Canada), colouring pencil (UK)
- 1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall for W. Rogers, […], →OCLC:
  Let no day pass over you […] without giving some strokes of the pencil or the crayon.
(dated) A crayon drawing, or a drawing with colored lines.
- 1885, Littell's Living Age, volume 167, page 187:
  But on the wall hung two fine crayons, representing Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette — pictures which she recognized as having hung in the corridor of the Tuileries — and in front of them were burning two candles on a species of rude altar.
(dated) A pencil of carbon used in producing electric light.

Usage notes

The /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɑn/ (in the US CRAY-ahn, in dialects with the cot-caught merger also CRAY-awn) and /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ɔn/ (in the US CRAY-awn) pronunciations are used by 83% of Americans. The monosyllabic /kɹæn/ [kɹɛə̯n ~ kɹeə̯n] (cran) pronunciation is used by 14%. 1.46% pronounce it the same way as "crown" (/kɹaʊ̯n/), and 1.24% use other pronunciations (one of them /ˈkɹeɪ̯.ən/ CRAY-uhn).^[3]

Derived terms

Related terms

cretaceous

Translations

colored chalk or wax

Armenian: գունավոր մատիտ (gunavor matit), գունավոր կավիճ (gunavor kavič), նկարչական ածուխ (nkarčʻakan acux)
Bulgarian: пасте́л m (pastél)
Catalan: llapis de color m
Chinese:
Cantonese: 蠟筆 / 蜡笔 (laap⁶ bat¹)

Hokkien: 蠟筆 / 蜡笔 (zh-min-nan) (la̍h-pit)

Mandarin: 蠟筆 / 蜡笔 (zh) (làbǐ)
Cornish: kreyon m
Czech: pastelka (cs) f, barevná tužka, krajon m
Dutch: waskrijt (nl) n, vetkrijt (nl) n, wasco (nl) n
Esperanto: paŝtelo
Finnish: väriliitu (fi), värit (fi)
French: pastel (fr) m, craie de cire f
German: Wachsmalstift (de) m
Greek: κηρομπογιά (el) f (kirompogiá)
Hungarian: zsírkréta (hu), pasztellkréta (hu)
Indonesian: krayon (id)
Irish: crián m
Italian: pastello (it) m
Japanese: クレヨン (ja) (kureyon)
Korean: 크레파스 (ko) (keurepaseu), 크레용 (ko) (keureyong)
Lao: ສໍສີມັນ (sǭ sī man)
Māori: penehinu
Marathi: क्रेयॉन m (kreyŏn)
Polish: kredka (pl) f, kredka woskowa f, kredka świecowa f, świecówka f (informal)
Portuguese: pastel (pt) m, giz de cera m (Brazil), lápis de cera m (Portugal)
Russian: цветно́й каранда́ш m (cvetnój karandáš), пасте́ль (ru) f (pastɛ́lʹ)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: крејон m

Latin: krejon (sh) m, krajon (sh) m, pastela f
Slovene: voščenka f
Spanish: creyón (es) m (Colombia, Venezuela, Canary Islands), crayón (es) m (Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Uruguay), crayola f (Cuba, Mexico, Peru), cera (es) f (Spain), pintura de cera f (Spain)
Swedish: krita (sv)
Thai: สีเทียน (sǐi-tiian), สีชอล์ก (sǐi-chɔ́k)
Turkish: pastel boya (tr)
Vietnamese: viết chì màu, bút sáp
Yoruba: ẹfun ìkùnwé

colored pencil

Dutch: kleurpotlood (nl) n

Verb

crayon (third-person singular simple present crayons, present participle crayoning or (rare) crayonning, simple past and past participle crayoned or (rare) crayonned)