| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| crescent |
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| SYLLABICATION: | cres·cent |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  kr s  nt |
| NOUN: | 1. The figure of the moon as it appears in its first or last quarter, with concave and convex edges terminating in points. 2. Something shaped like a crescent, especially: a. A curved pastry. b. A curved street, often presenting a continuous façade, as of row houses. | | ADJECTIVE: | 1. Crescent-shaped. 2. Waxing, as the moon; increasing. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English cressaunt, from Anglo-Norman, variant of Old French creissant, from present participle of creistre, to grow, from Latin cr scere. See ker-2 in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | cres·centic (kr-snt k) —ADJECTIVE
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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