The Anglo-Norman word, literally ‘crane’s foot’, is generally considered to be the origin for the word pedigree, probably because of the resemblance of a crane’s foot to the three curved lines as a symbol to indicate descent in genealogies (cf. OED etymology for pedigree). The word appears in English from the first quarter of the fifteenth century (in a great variety of different spellings) and in Continental French only from the early nineteenth-century (as an English loan-word, cf. TLF pedigree). While Anglo-Norman provides the earliest attestations indeed, it should be noted that a) the word appears to be rare (especially in comparison to its use in later English sources), b) no attestations of the literal sense ‘crane’s foot’ have been found, c) gree is not a variant spelling otherwise attested for grue¹.