Cranny hole.

[Sallie Lemons]

In the pre-WWII building I live in (NYC), virtually all apartments have "wall
nooks." They have rounded tops, mirrored backs and contain two or three shelves.

Mark Odegard wrote:

> >Now, do you ever use or see the word outside of them?
>
> As I remember, 'cranny hole' is a part of my vocabulary; this might be a
> dialectal isogloss that goes with the (now dead and gone) California use of
> 'Chesterfield' for 'sofa'. I think of this as a difficult-to-use chunk of
> space in a building. This can include space under stairs or odd corners of
> an attic. It's not really a 'crevice' a la MW; in a house, a crevice is very
> small, something you clean with the vacuum cleaner's crevice tool. A cranny
> is larger.
>
> A nook tends to be useable space, as with breakfast nook, but I wonder if
> anyone else gets the feeling that 'niche' overlaps. 'Wall nook' does not
> sound strange; it would be an oversized niche set into the wall, often
> containing cabinets or shelves: the presenting side would have to be flush
> with the surrounding wall, I think.
>
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