Library / English Dictionary

CRESCENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any shape resembling the curved shape of the moon in its first or last quarters

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Hypernyms ("crescent" is a kind of...):

curve; curved shape (the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes)

Derivation:

crescent (resembling the new moon in shape)

 II. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Resembling the new moon in shape

Synonyms:

crescent; crescent-shaped; lunate; semilunar

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

rounded (curving and somewhat round in shape rather than jagged)

Derivation:

crescent (any shape resembling the curved shape of the moon in its first or last quarters)

Credits

 Context examples: 

By the crescent upon it, it should be the second son of old Sir Hugh, who had a bolt through his ankle at the intaking of Romorantin, he having rushed into the fray ere his squire had time to clasp his solleret to his greave.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Here were the gold mullets of the Pakingtons, the sable and ermine of the Mackworths, the scarlet bars of the Wakes, the gold and blue of the Grosvenors, the cinque-foils of the Cliftons, the annulets of the Musgraves, the silver pinions of the Beauchamps, the crosses of the Molineaux, the bloody chevron of the Woodhouses, the red and silver of the Worsleys, the swords of the Clarks, the boars'-heads of the Lucies, the crescents of the Boyntons, and the wolf and dagger of the Lipscombs.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)