crescent: [14] Crescent is one of a wide range of words (including create, crescendo, concrete, crew, accretion, croissant, increase, and recruit) bequeathed to English by the Latin verb crēscere ‘grow’. In the case of crescent, it came in the form of the present participial stem crēscent-, which passed into English via Old French creissant and Anglo-Norman cressaunt.
Its use in the Latin phrase luna crescens ‘waxing moon’ led later to its application to the shape of the new moon, hence the modern meaning of crescent. The modern French form croissant has given English the term for a crescent-shaped puffpastry roll [19], so named allegedly from its original manufacture following the defeat of the Turkish besiegers of Budapest in 1686, whose Muslim symbol was the crescent. => accretion, create, creature, crew, croissant, increase, recruit
crescent (n.)
late 14c., "crescent-shaped ornament," from Anglo-French cressaunt, from Old French creissant "crescent of the moon" (12c., Modern French croissant), from Latin crescentum (nominative crescens), present participle of crescere "come forth, spring up, grow, thrive, swell, increase in numbers or strength," from PIE root *ker- (3) "to grow" (cognates: Latin Ceres, goddess of agriculture, creare "to bring forth, create, produce;" Greek kouros "boy," kore "girl;" Armenian serem "bring forth," serim "be born").
Applied in Latin to the waxing moon, luna crescens, but subsequently in Latin mistaken to refer to the shape, not the stage. The original Latin sense is preserved in crescendo. A badge or emblem of the Turkish sultans (probably chosen for its suggestion of "increase"); figurative sense of "Muslim political power" is from 1580s, but modern writers often falsely associate it with the Saracens of the Crusades or the Moors of Spain. Horns of the waxing moon are on the viewer's left side; those of the waning moon are on his right.
