Also 4 crassete, 5 crescette, cresette, cressete, -yt, 5–6 cressette, 5–7 -ett, 6 cres(s)hett(e, 7 cressit. [a. OF. craicet, craisset, cresset in same sense.]
1. A vessel of iron or the like, made to hold grease or oil, or an iron basket to hold pitched rope, wood, or coal, to be burnt for light; usually mounted on the top of a pole or building, or suspended from a roof. Frequent as a historical word; in actual use applied to a fire-basket for giving light on a wharf, etc.
1370. Mem. Ripon (Surtees), II. 130. j long cresset.
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 217. A pot of erthe, in which he tath A light brenning in a cresset.
c. 1477. Caxton, Jason, 85. The cite as light as it had ben daye by the clarte … of torches, cresettes and other fires.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. cccc. 694. The erle … was comyng … with a great nomber of cressettes and lyghtes with hym.
1535. Coverdale, Ecclus. xlviii. 1. Then stode vp Elias the prophet as a fyre, and his worde brent like a creshett.
1574. trans. Marlorat’s Apocalips, 29. As a cresset set vp in a hauen, to shew the hauen a far of.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Cresset, an old word used for a Lanthorn or burning beacon.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 728. Blazing Cressets fed With Naphtha and Asphaltus.
1782. Falconer, Shipwr., III. 202. Where beauteous Hero from the turret’s height Display’d her cresset.
1814. Scott, Ld. of Isles, I. xxiv. Soon the warder’s cresset shone.
1853. Dickens, Reprinted Pieces (1866), 221. Here and there, a coal fire in an iron cresset blazed upon a wharf.
† b. A cavity in a cresset-stone. Obs.
1593. Rites & Mon. Ch. Durh. (Surtees), 72. A four square stone, wherein was a dozen cressets wrought … being ever filled and supplied with the cooke as they needed, to give light to the Monks.
2. transf. and fig.; cf. torch.
1578. Chr. Prayers, in Priv. Prayers (1851), 445. Unto the spiritual world the cresset is thy wisdom.
1581. Marbeck, Bk. of Notes, 154. So doth our Sauiour saie of Iohn Baptist, that he was a burning and blasing cresset.
1604. Drayton, Owle, 1140. The bright Cressit of the Glorious Skie.
1826. Scott, Woodst., xxxiii. The moon … hung her dim dull cresset in the heavens.
1877. Bryant, Constellations, 13. The resplendent cressets which the Twins Uplifted.
3. Coopering. A fire-basket used to char the inside of a cask.
1874. in Knight, Dict. Mech.
4. local. ‘A kitchen utensil for setting a pot over the fire’ (Bailey (folio), 1730–6).
5. attrib. and Comb., as cresset-lamp; cresset-stone, a flat stone with cup-shaped hollows for holding grease to be burnt for light. See also CRESSET-LIGHT.
1875. Farrar, Silence & Voices, v. 90. The stars its cresset lamps.
