[ad. L. crēscent-em, pr. pple. of crēscĕre to grow, increase: see -ENT. In II mostly attrib. use of prec.]
I. 1. Growing, increasing, developing. (Often with some allusion to the moon.)
1574. Hyll, Conject. Weather, i. When all cressent things do bud forth.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., II. i. 10. My powers are Cressent, and my Auguring hope Sayes it will come to th’ full.
a. 1624. R. Crakanthorpe, Vigilans Dormitans, xiii. (1831), 186. In the first, the Pope was but Antichrist nascent; in the second, Antichrist crescent; in the third Antichrist regnant; but in this fourth, he is made Lord of the Catholike faith, and Antichrist triumphant.
1834. Wordsw., Lines on Portrait, 47. Childhood here, a moon Crescent in simple loveliness serene.
1845. De Quincey, Coleridge & Opium, Wks. 1890, V. 196. The wrath of Andrew, previously in a crescent state, actually dilated to a plenilunar orb.
1859. Tennyson, Elaine, 447. There is many a youth Now crescent, who will come to all I am And overcome it.
II. 2. Shaped like the new or old moon; convexo-concave, lunulate.
1603. Holland, Plutarche’s Rom. Quuest. (1892), 33. The moone … beginneth to show herself croissant in the evening.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., 100. Marked with the Moone Crescent, which is the Turkish Ensigne.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 439. With these in troop Came … Astarte, Queen of Heav’n, with crescent Horns.
1725. Turner, in Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 411. An Insect … with … a crescent or forked Tail.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), I. xi. 273. Galileo discovered that Venus had the same crescent phases as the waxing and the waning moon.
1860. Russell, Diary India, I. 359. New Orleans is called the ‘crescent city’ in consequence of its being built on a curve of the river.
