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Kriidi (Kriit)
Chalk, not just the stuff of schools, but also soft, fine-grained limestone. Name chosen, for want of anything better, from a list of building materials including Krohvi (krohv: plaster, rendering, or thick layer of make-up) and Mördi (mört: mortar). Word derived, ultimately, from Lat. creta, ‘Cretan earth’, the white clay abundant on the island of Crete (thus known since ±1500 BCE, making it unlikely to be of Celtic origin, as sometimes suggested), and also gives the name Cretaceous which, to round things up, is called Kriit in everyday Estonian.
Kriibi (?)
Former farm name. Meaning very uncertain: verb kriipima means to scratch, graze or scar, but not sure where that leads (see Hallivanamehe). Possibly a variant of a Russian loan word, гривы (grivy) meaning ‘long, low, gently sloping hills’ (possible, given the street’s surrounding topography), ‘peasant settlements on wasteland or floodplain’ hence ‘Soviet resettlement’, ‘river meanders’ or ‘oxbows’ or from грива ‘old river, river mouth’, akin to Latvian grīva ‘river mouth’. Nothing certain here. And street doesn’t seem to be built yet… See Pauna.
