A noun for a large crow-like bird, appearing in its plural form crebain in The Lord of the Rings (LotR/285). Its singular form craban was given in notes on Words, Phrases and Passages from the Lord of the Rings from the late 1950s or early 1960s, where Tolkien described it as “a bird of the crow-kind” and said it was “not an ancient Sindarin word, and probably a loan from some Mannish tongue of NW or from some non-Eldarin Elvish of the same region” (PE17/37). Jim Allen noted its similarity proto-Germanic ✱khrabanaz (An Introduction to Elvish, p. 75). The exact species isn’t clear, but it might be a kind of raven.
Sindarin
craban
noun. kind of crow of large size, raven
craban
a bird of the crow-kind
craban
noun. bird of crow-kind, *raven
corch
crow
corch (i gorch, o chorch), pl. cyrch (i chyrch). Also *craban (i graban, o chraban), pl. crebain (i chrebain). Only the pl. crebain* is attested. The sg. could be either craban, creban or croban**, but the first of these seems the most likely.
corch
crow
(i gorch, o chorch), pl. cyrch (i chyrch). Also ✱craban (i graban, o chraban), pl. crebain (i chrebain). Only the pl. crebain is attested. The sg. could be either ✱craban, ✱creban or ✱croban, but the first of these seems the most likely.
pl1. crebain _ n. _a bird of the crow-kind. Not an ancient S. word, and probably a loan from some Mannish tongue of North-West or from some non-Eldarin elvish of the same region.