crescent

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The figure of the moon as it appears in its first or last quarter, with concave and convex edges terminating in points.
2. n. Something shaped like a crescent, especially:
3. n. A curved pastry.
4. n. A curved street, often presenting a continuous façade, as of row houses.
5. adj. Crescent-shaped.
6. adj. Waxing, as the moon; increasing.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Increasing; growing: specifically applied to the moon during its first quarter, when its visible portion is increasing in area, in the curved form called a crescent (see II.).
2. Shaped like the appearance of the moon during its first quarter.
3. n. The period of apparent growth or increase of the moon in its first quarter: as, the moon is in its crescent.
4. n. The increasing part of the moon in its first quarter, or the similarly shaped decreasing part in its last quarter, when it presents a bow of light terminating in points or horns: as, the crescent of the moon.
5. n. The moon itself in either its first or its last quarter; the new or the old moon.
6. n. Something in the shape of the crescent moon; a crescent-shaped object, construction, device, or symbol. Specifically— The Turkish standard, which bears the figure of a crescent, and, figuratively, the Turkish military power itself. The use of the crescent as the Turkish emblem dates from the conquest of Constantinople (1453); it had been considered in a sense an emblem of the city, and was assumed by the Turkish sultans in commemoration of their signal conquest.
7. n. In heraldry, a bearing in the form of young or new moon, usually borne horizontally with the horns uppermost. See decrescent and increscent.
8. n. In architecture, a range of buildings in the form of crescent or half-moon: as, Lansdowne Crescent in London.
9. n. A Turkish military musical instrument with bells or jingles.
10. n. A defect in a horse's foot, when the coffin-bone falls down.
11. n. In lace-making, a cordonnet of considerable projection inclosing part of the pattern of point-lace, giving it relief, and separating it from the ground or from other parts of the pattern. Thus, if a leaf is made of cloth-stitch, it may be surrounded by a crescent one eighth of an inch thick and with half as much projection, and this again by a ring of ornamental loops or couronnes.
12. n. A small roll of bread of various kinds, made in the form of crescent.
13. To form into a crescent.
14. To surround partly in a semicircular or crescent form.
15. n. The curved, sausage-shaped gametocyte of Laverania, the parasite of pernicious *malaria (which see, with cut).
16. n. In certain extinct cardioid pelecypods, a lunate flattening of the shell-surface just behind the beaks. It specially characterizes the Devonian genus Honeoyea.
17. n. In the extinct trimerellid brachiopods, a curved and narrow muscular scar on each valve just within the cardinal margin.
18. n. In plate-armor, one of the small pieces of steel used to protect joints. See gusset .

Wiktionary

1. n. The figure of the moon as it appears in its first or last quarter, with concave and convex edges terminating in points.
2. n. Something shaped like a crescent, especially:
3. n. New Zealand A crescent spanner.
4. adj. dated, rare marked by an increase; waxing, like the Moon.
5. v. transitive To form into a crescent, or something resembling a crescent.
6. v. transitive To adorn with crescents.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The increasing moon; the moon in her first quarter, or when defined by a concave and a convex edge; also, applied improperly to the old or decreasing moon in a like state.
2. n. Anything having the shape of a crescent or new moon.
3. n. A representation of the increasing moon, often used as an emblem or badge.
4. n. A symbol of Artemis, or Diana.
5. n. The ancient symbol of Byzantium or Constantinople.
6. n. The emblem of the Turkish Empire, adopted after the taking of Constantinople.
7. n. Any one of three orders of knighthood; the first instituted by Charles I., king of Naples and Sicily, in 1268; the second by René of Anjou, in 1448; and the third by the Sultan Selim III., in 1801, to be conferred upon foreigners to whom Turkey might be indebted for valuable services.
8. n. (Her.) The emblem of the increasing moon with horns directed upward, when used in a coat of arms; -- often used as a mark of cadency to distinguish a second son and his descendants.
9. adj. Shaped like a crescent.
10. adj. Increasing; growing.
11. v. rare To form into a crescent, or something resembling a crescent.
12. v. To adorn with crescents.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. resembling the new moon in shape
2. n. any shape resembling the curved shape of the moon in its first or last quarters