v1.0
Publishing history:
v1.0: 01/10/24
cràigheadh m. [ˈkɾaːˌjaɣ], 
Cf. McDonald 1972: cràighiadh.
Cf. Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: [kɾɑ:jıɑɣ], North Uist, and (the normalised oblique form) [kɾɑ:ȷɑi], Harris.
The second element of this bird name is SG gèadh (sometimes written giadh) m. ‘goose’ (EG géḋ). Confusion of the first element with cràdh m. ‘pain, anguish’ and cnàimh m. ‘bone’ is long-standing: Shaw (1780) lists on the one hand cradhgheadh, with a cross-reference to cnamhgheadh, and on the other (pl.) cnaimhgheoidh ‘a bird between a goose and a duck’, 
Borrowing from Shaw, O’Reilly’s (1817) Irish dictionary lists cradhgheadh, with a cross-reference to cnaimgheoidh (sic), but omits the entry for cnaimhgheoidh.
Cf. SG cnàimh-fhitheach m. ‘raven’, cnàimheach ‘a member of the crow or corvid family of birds’.
The shelduck is larger than a mallard but smaller than a goose. It has a dark green head, a red beak and pink legs and feet; additionally, it has a russet breast band over a white body, hence its English name shelduck (< sheld- ‘pied’). Noting the colour of its beak and breast band, Garvie (1999, 59) explains the first element of the Gaelic name means ‘red’, cf. SG cràidhearg 
Cf. Dieckhoff 1932: craidhearg [kraːijèrag].
Greene 1983, 6–7.
≈CG II, 250–01, lists several examples of crà ‘blood, hence red’ in compounds, including crà-dhearg ‘blood-red’, crà-dhubh ‘dark red’, crà-gheal ‘light red’, crà-chù ‘fox’, crà-ghèadh ‘shelduck’ and, anomalously, crà-fhaoileag ‘red gull’, identified as ‘the black-headed gull generally called ceann-dubh and ceann-dubhan “black-headed”’, although here there may be conflation with cnàimh-. Forbes (1905, 25, 332) includes cra-gheal (sic) for ‘shelduck’, but this is probably in error.