crone: [14] Crone has a rather macabre history. Essentially it is the same word as carrion. It began life in Latin carō ‘flesh’, which had a Vulgar Latin derivative *carōnia ‘carcass’. In Old Northern French this became carogne, which was applied metaphorically to a withered old woman (English carrion comes from the Anglo-Norman form caroine). Middle Dutch borrowed the word as croonje, applying it additionally to old ewes, and passed it on to English. => carrion
late 14c., from Anglo-French carogne, from Old North French carogne, term of abuse for a cantankerous or withered woman, literally "carrion," from Vulgar Latin *caronia (see carrion).
