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Crescent   /krˈɛsənt/   Listen
Crescent

noun
1.
Any shape resembling the curved shape of the moon in its first or last quarters.



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"Crescent" Quotes from Famous Books



... became visible, and all firing ceased while besiegers and besieged watched the approaching ships. Was it a French fleet or a Turkish? Did it bring succour to the besieged or a triumph to the besiegers? The approaching ships flew the crescent. It was the Turkish fleet from Rhodes bringing reinforcements. But the wind was sinking, and Napoleon, who had watched the approach of the hostile ships with feelings which may be guessed, calculated that there remained six ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... nearly over, for the bright orb of day had already sank behind the distant hills, and the silvery crescent of the summer's young moon had risen above the tops of the tall chestnuts and was shooting forth her rays of soft, pale light, rendering all objects shadowy and indistinct, while the gently deepening purple shades of eve, and the gray mists of twilight were ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... sleeps beneath the sky, And clasps the shadows to its breast; The crescent moon shines dim on high; And in the lately radiant west The gold is fading into gray. Now stills the lark his festive lay, And mourns with me ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... across the sun's disk. Hence, on ordinary occasions, when she seems very near on a line with the sun, we see a very small part of the illuminated hemisphere, which now presents the form of a very thin crescent like the new moon. And this crescent is supposed to be a little broader than it would be if only half the planet were illuminated, and to encircle rather more than half the planet. Now, this is just the effect that would be produced by an atmosphere refracting the sun's light around the ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... fellow citizen Dr. Knower, who is to start for California by the Crescent City via Panama, is about to ship to that place twelve houses, complete and ready to put up on arrival at San Francisco. The venture is a costly one, the freight on the material approaching the cost of ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower

... paddling warriors in the canoes were destined to be justified, the big steamer was in parlous state. Her vast bulk and sheer walls of steel did not daunt them. They came on steadily against the rapid current, and spread out into a crescent when within a few hundred yards of the ship. Then three men, crouching in the bows of different canoes, produced rifles hitherto invisible and began to shoot. The bullets ricochetted across the ripples, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... sitting between them—the lions being intended to represent the Lions of Judah. The King was crowned, but above him, suspended over the boat, was a much larger crown, and underneath that and in the air to the left, but slightly above the King's crown, was the Turkish Crescent, while in a similar position to the right was ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... not. She made calls in the new frocks, and with such persistent spirit that she fished forth from the depths of indifferent hospitality two or three excellent invitations. She wore her freshest pink frock, and an amazingly clever little Parisian diamond crescent in her hair, at the huge Monson ball at Delmonico's, and it was recorded that it was on that glittering occasion that her "Uncle James" was first brought upon the scene. He was only mentioned lightly at first. It was to ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... costume, from the falbala which adorned the bottom of their skirts, up to that little knot of riband in the hair, which had come to replace the old appalling edifice of ten stories high, in hierarchic succession of duchess, solitary, musketeer, crescent, firmament, tenth heaven, and mouse.[117] The oldest contributor was Lenglet du Fresnoy, whose book on the Method of Studying History is still known to those who have examined the development of men's ideas about the relations of the present to the past. Lenglet ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... associations connected with its early history. Thus a row of houses, which a few years ago bore the not very euphonious name of Castle Ditch, from its having followed a portion of the line of the moat by which the fortress which once stood near it was surrounded, was changed into St George's Crescent, and many others underwent similar transmutations. But if the physical aspect of the place holds out few or no attractions to the antiquary, the moral one of its inhabitants, in so far as his favourite subject is concerned, is equally uninviting; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... able to protect herself. At midnight her countryman and the missionary carried her out by torchlight to a spot in the garden that had been formerly her favourite resort, and here they buried the self-exiled lady.—From “THE CRESCENT AND ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... took the sword up and marched on the platform with it at my side. This I will say for it—that, considering its size and weight, it is easily carried; for not only is there the crosspiece as hand-guard, but above this is a crescent worked in the iron, the horns extending with the convexity towards the point of the blade. By putting a couple of fingers under these horns, the sword is carried at the side, pommel downwards, blade up, with perfect ease, the balance is so true. Some difficulty ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... Christian population of Constantinople, or as captives in the various expeditions in Christian territory. The Janissaries were brought up wholly to a military life, they were not permitted to marry, and their lives were devoted to fighting for the Crescent. For a long time they were invincible ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... equipped after the Prussian fashion, the finances placed on a tolerable footing, and practical independence of Turkey asserted. At the Vienna exhibition Roumania was the only one of the nominally-vassal states that did not display the star and crescent. Were the prince unrestrained by respect for Austrian and Prussian diplomacy, and free to lead his well-disciplined army of fifty thousand men into the field, he would give the signal for a general uprising in Bosnia and Servia, and thus probably ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... advance in the different parts of the glacier was ascertained this summer with greater precision than before. The rows of stakes planted in a straight line across the glacier by Agassiz and Escher de la Linth, in the previous September, now described a crescent with the curve turned toward the terminus of the glacier, showing, contrary to the expectation of Agassiz, that the centre moved faster than the sides. The correspondence of the curve in the stratification with that of the line of stakes confirmed ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... political state in Europe, no balance of power in one common tie of confederation! A single battle, and a single treason, had before made the Mahometans sovereigns of Spain. We see that the same events had nearly been repeated in France: and had the Crescent towered above the Cross, as every appearance promised to the Saracenic hosts, the least of our evils had now been, that we should have worn turbans, combed our beards instead of shaving them, have beheld a more magnificent ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... of pines, that it broods by them, and weaves itself among their branches, to and fro? Has it hidden a cloudy treasure among the moss at their roots, which it watches thus? Or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning, or bound it fast within those bars of bough? And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hills—that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,—how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow,—nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... Mr. Ravenel were coming up the slope. I beckoned them to come softly, not to disturb the father. They and I sat in silence, facing the west. The sun journeyed down to his setting—lower—lower; there was a crescent, a line, a dim sparkle of light; then—he was gone. And still we sat—grave, but not sad—looking into the brightness he had left behind; believing, yea, knowing, we should see his ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... pointed straight, a mask, a rod, a trident, a narrow bottle or amphora, a bow, an arrow, a lance, a horse, a bull, a lion, and many other animals conspicuous for masculine power. As symbols of the female, the passive though fruitful element in creation, the crescent moon, the earth, darkness, water, and its emblem, a triangle with the apex downward, "the yoni"—the shallow vessel or cup for pouring fluid into (cetera), a ring or oval, a lozenge, any narrow cleft, either natural or ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... town with my wife and Henrietta; wonderful docks and quays, where all the ships of the world seemed to be gathered—all the commerce of the world to be carried on; St. George's Crescent; noble shops; strange people walking about, an Herculean mulatto, for example; the old china shop; cups with Chinese characters upon them; an horrible old Irishwoman with naked feet; ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... every one would have been justified in believing him a very cool lover, but during the walk with Eva to the lodgings of his cousin Maier of Silenen, where the Schurlins, Ortliebs, Wolff, and Herr Pfinzing and his wife were to meet to celebrate the betrothal, the moon, whose increasing crescent was again in the sky, beheld many ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and other Chiefs.—Reflections upon Information obtained from them, and at Goree, relative to this Part of the Coast.—Embark in his Majesty's Sloop of War the Eugenia, which convoyed Mr. Mungo Park in the Brig Crescent, to the River Gambia, on his late Mission to the Interior of Africa.—Observations on that Subject.—Arrive in Porto Praya Bay, in the Island of St. Jago.—Some Remarks upon that Island.—Departure from thence to England, and ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... mile, perhaps a little more, or a leisurely walk of about twenty minutes. It was one o'clock in the morning, one o'clock or maybe half-past one; the sky had by this time cleared somewhat and the crescent appeared, the gloomy crescent of the last quarter of the moon. The crescent of the first quarter is, that which rises about five or six o'clock in the evening; is clear, gay and fretted with silver; but the one which rises after midnight is reddish, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... town is an open square, which forms a sort of line of demarcation between the crescent and the cross. On the one side, several large and good houses have been constructed by the wealthiest senators, in the German manner, with flaring new white walls and bright green shutter-blinds. On the other side is a mosque, and dead old garden ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... Crescent City I hurried away—far away from the St. Charles to a dim chambre garnie in Bienville Street. And there, looking down from my attic window from time to time at the old, yellow, absinthe house across the street, I wrote this story to buy my bread ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... peculiarities of climate, soil, and population, together with its geographical characteristics. The form of the island is quite irregular, resembling the blade of a Turkish scimitar slightly curved back, or that of a long narrow crescent, presenting its convex side to the north. It stretches away in this shape from east to west, throwing its western end into a curve, as if to form a barrier to the outlet of the Gulf of Mexico, and as if ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... Desert, and on the W. by the sea; there is great diversity of climate throughout its extent owing to the great diversity of level, and its flora and fauna are of corresponding range; it suffered much during the wars between the Eastern monarchies and Egypt, and in the wars between the Crescent and the Cross, and is now by a strange fate in the hands of the Turk; it has in recent times been the theatre of extensive exploring operations in the interest of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the confines of France, Switzerland, and Sardinia, at the outlet of the Lake of Geneva, which is perhaps the most beautiful, and certainly the most celebrated, lake in Switzerland. It is shaped like a crescent,—that is, like the new moon, or rather like the moon after it is about four or five days old. The lower end of the lake—that is, the end where Geneva is situated—lies in a comparatively open country, though vast ranges of lofty mountains, some of them covered with perpetual snow, ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott

... irresistible in the universe, was white. The sacred thread round his person was also white. He was surrounded with associates, all possessed with prowess equal to his own, who were singing or dancing or playing on diverse kinds of musical instruments. A crescent moon, of pale hue, formed his crown, and placed on his forehead it looked like the moon that rises in the autumnal firmament. He seemed to dazzle with splendour, in consequence of his three eyes that looked like three suns. The garland of the purest white, that was on his body, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... lakes and small swampy mountain basins. There are many good harbours for small boats, and several which afford perfect security at all times for large vessels on the eastern shores of the islands traversed. Of these, Copper Bay, Gray Bay, Laskeek Bay, Crescent Inlet, Sedgwick Bay, Werner Bay, Island Bay, George Bay, Collison Bay, Carpenter Bay, Provost Bay, Luxana Bay, and Seal Cove are the most important. On the west shore of the islands, though the harbor ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... crescent, kindly Moon; So shall Endymion faithful prove, and rest Loving and unawakened on thy breast; So shall no foul enchanter importune Thy quiet course; for now the night is boon, And through the friendly night unseen I fare, Who ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang

... pale crescent of a new moon, across which masses of dark and inky clouds were hurrying, tipped with its faint and sickly light the tall minarets of the Hotel de Ville, as I rode into the Grande Place. Although midnight, the streets were as crowded as at noonday; horse, foot, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... No.—Crescent Avenue, and is now, as you are, of course, aware, the wife of Mr. Reginald Ashley, who is, as you know, closely connected with ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... forty-one vessels, all told, from the flagship Neptune of ninety guns down to the smallest craft that carried supplies. It was a brave sight off the mouth of the Saguenay, where the deep-water estuary ends, to see the whole fleet, together at sunset, with its thousand white sails, in a crescent twenty miles long, a-gleam on the blue ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... peacock of Burmah, the double-headed Russian eagle, and black dragon of China, the winged lion of Venice, and the prancing pair on the red, white, and blue flag of Holland. The keys and mitre of the Papal States were a hard job, but up they went at last, with the yellow crescent of Turkey on one side and the red full moon of Japan on the other; the pretty blue and white flag of Greece hung below and the cross of free Switzerland above. If materials had held out, the flags of all the United ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... shadow so dear to the painter's eye. And so she dreams away the warm hours in such a calm of thought within, and sight or sound without, that she starts when the gold-fish gleam in the fountain, or the breeze-ruffled roses shed a leaf upon her bosom."—Eliot Warburton, "The Crescent and the ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... arm rests, with her body almost fronting the spectator and her face in complete profile. She wears an entirely sleeveless dress of black satin, against which her admirable left arm detaches itself; the line of her harmonious profile has a sharpness which Mr. Sargent does not always seek, and the crescent of Diana, an ornament in diamonds, rests on her singular head. This work had not the good-fortune to please the public at large, and I believe it even excited a kind of unreasoned scandal—an idea sufficiently ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... of Mineral Springs in Eastern New York consists of a long, shallow and crescent-shaped valley, extending northeast from Ballston, its western horn, to Quaker Springs, its eastern extremity. The entire valley abounds in mineral fountains of more or less merit, and in the central portion bubble up the Waters ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... so called from a small village and Lama temple of that name on its summit; where we arrived at noon, and passing some chaits* [The chait of Sikkim, borrowed from Tibet, is a square pedestal, surmounted with a hemisphere, the convex end downwards, and on it is placed a cone, with a crescent on the top. These are erected as tombs to Lamas, and as monuments to illustrious persons, and are venerated accordingly, the people always passing them from left to right, often repeating the invocation, "Ora Mani Padmi om."] gained the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps—does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning—the smile that flickers on baby's lips ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore

... Vest a city pleasant To vich King Bladud gev his name, And in that city there's a Crescent Vere dwelt ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Behind them came a varlet with a paper mitre on his head, and a lathen crosier in his hand, covered with a surcoat, on which was emblazoned, but torn and reversed, the arms of Paslew; argent, a fess between three mullets, sable, pierced of the field, a crescent for difference. After him came another varlet bearing a banner, on which was painted a grotesque figure in a half-military, half-monastic garb, representing the "Earl of Poverty," with this distich ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... and the Queen appears in such apparel and manner as the exchequer at the theatre and the ingenuity of the stage mechanic are able to provide. (When last I saw her her robe was black, bespangled with stars and glittering gems, and she rode upon the crescent moon.) She knows the merits and virtues of the youth, and promises that he shall have Pamina to wife if he succeeds in his adventure. Papageno is commanded to accompany him, and as aids the ladies give ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... this effect was heightened by misty wreaths, upon which were borne aloft the more radiant members, who danced and flashed as heat-lightning on the clouds of a summer's night. The light, instead of being a bright glare, was soft and mellow, and fell from crescent-shaped lanterns on the staffs of pages, who moved in a measured way among the throng, producing a ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... species usually grows on lawns, in clusters which form an imperfect circle or crescent. The ring increases in size each year as new fungi grow on the outside, while old ones toward the center of the circle perish. This mushroom is small and slender, and rarely exceeds two inches in breadth. The cap and the tough and tubular stem are buff, and the gills, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... of Marathon lies on the eastern coast of Attica, at the distance of twenty-two miles from Athens by the shortest road. It is in the form of a crescent, the horns of which consist of two promontories running into the sea, and forming a semicircular bay. This plain is about six miles in length, and in its widest or central part about two in breadth. On the day of battle the Persian army was drawn up along the plain about a mile from the sea, ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... prim cedars, spots where no tree has stood these hundred years. Anon they change to dim figures of preposterous beasts, called back to earth for a brief hour while the old moon, worn and thin, rises through them, a nebulous red crescent, and the stars fade, yet show dimly through like the moon, proving that these are but disembodied monsters. Sometimes they wait till dawn bids them dematerialize before it. More often winter, which ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... There was a warm and fitful spring wind blowing, and the unceasing rustling of the ilex leaves seemed cool and soothing to his hot and overwrought senses. In the upper strata of the air, a stronger gale was chasing dense masses and torn shreds of cloud with a fierce speed before the lunar crescent; and the broad terrace beyond the trees was alternately illuminated and plunged in gloom. In one of these sudden illuminations, Cranbrook thought he saw a man leaning against the marble balustrade; something appeared to ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Zanzibar is in the form of a crescent, and on the south-western horn of it is built the city. On the east Zanzibar is bounded almost entirely by the Malagash Lagoon, an inlet of the sea. It penetrates to at least two hundred and fifty yards of the sea behind or south of Shangani Point. Were ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... tenth, and fifteenth, were large stones, each about six feet high, and having the Trinity Hall arms cut on them, viz., sable, a crescent in Fess ermine, with a bordure engrailed of the 2nd. The others were small, having simply the number of miles cut on them. Between the years 1728 and 1732, Dr. Warren caused all these small mile-stones to be replaced by larger ones, each ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... hidden in a long horizontal stratum of gray cloud, edged atop with a lacing of silver. Such was the aspect of the noble breakwater in front. Fully two-thirds of the semi-circular rampart of rock which shuts in the crescent-shaped plain directly opposite lay in deep shadow; but the sun shone softly on the plain itself, brightening up many a dingy cottage, and many a green patch of corn; and the bay below stretched out, sparkling in the light. There is no ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... the hill, armed and armored like the first one, though not so richly, and bearing a standard of dulled yellow silk hanging from a gilded staff. The ground of the standard was filled with inscriptions in red lettering, leaving the golden crescent and star on the point of the staff to speak of nationality. The bearer of the flag dismounted, and at a sign planted it in ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... however, Tom had had a chance to glance at his face, and, to the chagrin of the young inventor, he recognized, by the dim light of a crescent moon, the countenance of Andy Foger! If additional evidence was needed Tom fully recognized the form as that ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... a bay, for there was the long white crescent of surf reaching far away on either side, till it was lost in the dusk, and the brig helpless in the midst of it. Elzevir had hold of my arm, and gripped it hard as he looked to larboard. I followed his eyes, and where one horn of the white crescent faded into ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... from eastern skies, With his grim host magnificently rise, Wave his broad crescent o'er the Midland sea, Thro vast Hungaria drive his conquering way, Crowd close the Christian powers, and carry far The rules of homicide, the lore ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... but it changed gradually, as nature changes, waxing like the moon from a thin, pure crescent to a full circle of light. Guided by a perfect instinct, he progressed, fulfilling the course of his artistic destiny. We notice change, but each change brings fuller beauty. And through the long and beautiful year of Corot's genius—full as the year itself ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... bloated, and the lobes were large and swelled. He had apparently a difficulty in breathing, for his large mouth, with its scarlet, shining lips, was constantly open. He had grown much balder and now there was only a crescent of long hair stretching across the back of his head from ear to ear. There was something terrible about that great shining scalp. His paunch was huge; he was a very tall man and held himself erect, so that it protruded like a vast barrel. His hands were infinitely repulsive; they were red ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... sanctioned the gift of the island by Charles V. of Germany to the Knights; and among the trophies are the jeweled coat of mail and weapons of a famous Algerine corsair, a cannon curiously constructed of a copper tube wound with tarred rope, and many torn and blood-stained, crescent-mounted standards which in the hand-to-hand conflicts had ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... Twilight was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light rested on the top of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading away, though the sky to the westward still preserved a little pale golden light by the help of the descending crescent moon. ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... herself in a large saloon, which took in the whole width of the stern of the dahabeeyah. The end of this saloon widened out and was crescent-shaped, and contained a low dais with curving divans, divided by two sliding doors which were now pushed back in their recesses, giving access to a big balcony that looked out over the Nile and that was protected by an awning. The wooden ceiling was cut up into lozenges of black and gold, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... she stopped the car that they might enjoy for a moment the twilight glow of the valley. Lights twinkled from the Mill houses across the river. From the House of Laughter came the sound of singing. A young crescent of a moon shone silvery ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... ascertained his facts from native almanacks or the calculations of the astrologers, or whether he spoke from observations made by himself or by some one who was present; but Nuniz was an ordinary person, not a skilled astronomer, so far as we can tell, and he may well have called the day on which the crescent of the new moon first made its appearance just after sunset the "new moon day." This first appearance actually took place on the Saturday following. The first day of the Muhammadan month Jamada' l akhir, corresponding to the heliacal rising ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... shorter than those of butterflies and elegantly curled; the wings, both upper and under, are of the most exquisite pale tint of green, fringed at the edges with golden colour; each wing has a small shaded crescent of pale blue, deep red, and orange; the blue forming the centre, like a half-closed eye; the lower wings elongated in deep scollop, so as to form two long tails, like those of the swallow-tail butterfly, only a full inch in length and deeply fringed; ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... bank of a broad and crescent-shaped reach of the river Swan, in an extremely well-chosen locality. The streets are broad; and those houses which are placed nearest to the river, possess, perhaps, the most luxuriant gardens in the world. Every kind of fruit known in the finest climates is here produced in perfection. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... to photographs, to convey a concise adequate idea of Cliff Palace. Seen from across its canyon the splendid crescent-shaped ruin offers to the unaccustomed eye little that is common to modern architecture. Prominently in the foreground, large circular wells at once challenge interest. These were the kivas, or ceremonial rooms of the community, centres of the religious activities which counted so ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... started, with his family, for Torquay, where he remained until August 27—a holiday which he characteristically enters in his diary as "eight weeks and a day." The house he occupied was in Hesketh Crescent, a pleasantly placed row of houses close above the sea, somewhat removed from what was then the main body of the town, and not far from the beautiful cliffed coast-line in the neighbourhood of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... little behind her and looking down, not so much at the painting as at the back of her bent neck, where the absurd little drake's tails curved against the skin, so white in the sunshine. One ear was rosy where the light shone through it, and behind it lay a soft blue crescent of shadow. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... jet black, and dark are its lashes, Between the arched brows, like a crescent it flashes; When painted with "kohl" 'tis brighter by far, Than the full-orbed moon or the ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... the Rev. Mr. Cole, March 9.-Character of Dr. Farmer. Declaration of war by the Emperor against the Crescent. Ambition and interest under the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... the sledge is about four feet and a half long, and a foot wide, made in the form of a crescent, of light tough wood, strongly bound together with wicker-work; which, in those belonging to the better sort of people, is elegantly stained of a red and blue colour, and the seat covered with bear-skins, or other furs. It is supported by four legs, about two feet high, which rest on two long flat ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... heiress, not in the eldest line, but through a second son. A possible pattern for a younger son was three cross crosslets fitchee and a chief or. As such they were borne by the Ardens of Alvanley, with a crescent for difference. They were borne without the crescent by Simon Arden of Longcroft,[78] the second son of the next generation, and full cousin of Mary Arden's father. It is true that among the tombs at Yoxall the fesse chequy appeared, but there is evident confusion in their use. Martin Arden ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... character, even could it be kept in proper order, would be out of place in any country but Italy. Busts of Virgil or Ariosto would look astonished in an English snowstorm; statues of Apollo and Diana would be no more divine, where the laurels of the one would be weak, and the crescent of the other would never gleam in pure moonlight. The whole glory of the design consists in its unison with the dignity of the landscape, and with the classical tone of the country. Take it away from its concomitant circumstances, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... cast an appreciative glance at the crescent moon in the jewel-like blue overhead, and at the soft shadows of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... lastly Joachim du Bellay; and with that strange love of emblems which is characteristic of the time, which covered all the works of Francis the First with the salamander, and all the works of Henry the Second with the double crescent, and all the works of Anne of Brittany with the knotted cord, they called themselves the Pleiad; seven in all, although, as happens with the celestial Pleiad, if you scrutinise this constellation of poets more carefully you may find there a great ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... her room for many days by an attack of rheumatism, and the time devoted to her was generally reclaimed from sleep. It was no mystery that she looked ill and spent. Now, as she sat watching the silver crescent glittering in the vest, her thoughts wandered to Clara Sanders, and the last letter received from her, telling of a glorious day-star of hope which had risen in her cloudy sky. Mr. Arlington's brother ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... moons in order following thou regard, Ne'er will to-morrow's hour deceive thee, ne'er Wilt thou be caught by guile of cloudless night. When first the moon recalls her rallying fires, If dark the air clipped by her crescent dim, For folks afield and on the open sea A mighty rain is brewing; but if her face With maiden blush she mantle, 'twill be wind, For wind turns Phoebe still to ruddier gold. But if at her fourth rising, for 'tis that Gives surest counsel, clear she ride thro' heaven With horns unblunted, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... in the form of heavy uprights, was set in the ground. The dimensions inside were thirty-four feet by eleven feet; the height, eleven feet at the northern and six feet at the southern end. As a break-wind a crescent-shaped wall of benzine cases was built several yards to the south. As in the case of the veranda, it was very difficult to make the Hangar impervious to drift; a certain quantity of snow always made its way in, and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... seen the outside of London. What do we care for the Crescent, and the Horseguards, and Nelson's Monument, and the statue of Achilles, and the new Houses of Parliament? The Abbey, the Tower, the Bridge, Temple Bar, the Monument, St. Paul's: these make up the great features of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... bands of green (hoist side) and white with a red five-pointed star within a red crescent; the crescent, star, and color green are traditional symbols of Islam (the ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... is the signal for the commencement of the fast. All eyes being on the watch, it naturally follows that the new moon of this month is generally seen at an earlier stage than are those of the other months of the year, and its crescent is therefore apparently more slender. Hence ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... trees free from the "curculio," a small beetle which is the principal insect pest of this fruit. This beetle is sometimes called "the little Turk" because he makes a mark on a plum that resembles the "star and crescent" of the ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... four-and-twenty windows, is formed with so small a curve, that the depth is equal only to one sixth of its diameter; the measure of that diameter is one hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofty centre, where a crescent has supplanted the cross, rises to the perpendicular height of one hundred and eighty feet above the pavement. The circle which encompasses the dome, lightly reposes on four strong arches, and their weight ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... sentiment of esteem and friendship could be awakened in the breasts of those who must always consider them as vanquished enemies. Besides the hatred which rankled alike in the hearts of the followers of the Cross and those of the Crescent, a hatred, which had been hereditary for many ages, was of itself an insurmountable obstacle to the friendly conjunction of two such different people. The Moors were therefore a prey to the most galling reflections, and smarting under the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... while sitting there, and as time passed and new views were constantly opening before them, both seemed agreed that it had been an inspiration that had caused Thad to suggest this voyage, with the far-away Crescent ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... summer sun has shed His golden glories round thy mountain head, And tarried there with late and lingering hues, While all below was steeped in twilight dews, And night's proud queen, in ages past, as now, Hung her pale crescent o'er thy beetling brow. Soft lamp—that lights the happy to their rest, But wakes fresh anguish in the hapless breast, And calls it forth a restless ghost, to glide In lonely sadness up the mountain side; And couldst not thou, oh! ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before Duerer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And to these succeeded the noble ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... equal to her own breadth; we call the time this takes an hour. From her rising to her setting, she gains her own breadth twelve times; therefore, the night and the day are divided each into twelve hours. Meanwhile she grows from crescent to full disk, to wane again to a sickle of light, and presently to lose herself in darkness at new moon. From full moon to full moon, or from one new moon to another, the nearest even measure is thirty days; a circle of thirty stones would record this, as the larger circle ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... floating batteries was a white ground with the same "Appeal to Heaven" upon it. It is supposed that at Bunker Hill our troops carried a red flag, with a pine tree on a white field in the corner. The first flag in South Carolina was blue, with a crescent in the corner, and received its first baptism under Moultrie. In 1776, Col. Gadsen presented to Congress a flag to be used by the navy, which consisted of a rattle-snake on a yellow ground, with thirteen rattles, ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... the sharp reports of rifles both to right and left. The horns of the advancing crescent were coming into contact with St. Luc's sentinels. Then Daganoweda, knowing that the full alarm had been given, uttered a fierce and thrilling cry and all the Mohawks took it up. It was a tremendous shout, making the blood leap and inciting ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... view, yet out of reach, the little battery exasperated the baffled brigades while it extorted their admiration. General Ruggles sent his staff officers in all directions to sweep in all the guns they could reach. He gives the names of eleven batteries and one section which he planted in a great crescent, pouring in a concentric fire. From this tornado of missiles Hickenlooper withdrew his battery complete, and, passing to the rear through Hurlbut's camp, reported to Sherman ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... Twilight deepened into darkness. One by one the stars appeared; then the crescent moon rose over the wooded hill in the west, and the hunter never moved. With his head leaning against the log he sat quiet and patient. At midnight he whispered to the dog, and crawling from his hiding place glided stealthily up the stream. Far ahead from the dark depths ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark, stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turbanless and almost naked, with long matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes. But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek—the result of an accident for which I was responsible—I should never have known him. But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and—for this I was thankful—an English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... pale-green, compound,—those of the stem similar in form, but of smaller size. The branches of the plant terminate in large umbels, or spherical bunches of yellowish flowers; which are succeeded by roundish fruits, each of which contains two crescent-shaped seeds. ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... cross-bearing warrior, prince and knight, page and soldier. Some shouted for joy, some kissed the very ground as a sacred thing, some wept aloud at the thought of the sins they had brought with them, and the sight of the tokens of Zion's captivity—the Dome and the Crescent. Then once more their war-cry rose as with one voice, and Mount Zion and Mount Olivet echoed it back to them, "Deus vult! Deus vult!" as to answer that the time ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of antique shape, with curved prow and stern, each terminating in a bird's head, on the sea. In a field over the tower, the inscription: NAVIS ECCL'IE. On the left a wavy estoile of six points, on the right a crescent. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... redeeming word, the yet lisping utterers of light and life, a strength and a power were given 'because of the enemies', greater and of more immediate influence, than to the seers and proclaimers of a clearer day:—even as the first re-appearing crescent of the eclipsed moon shines for men with a keener brilliance, than the following larger segments, ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... enormous force, with instructions from Napoleon to "advance upon the English, pursue them without cessation, beat them, and fling them into the sea." To insure his forces against the execution of this mandate Wellesley constructed a crescent of earthworks about Lisbon, "the lines of Torres Vedras," within which he might take refuge, and under cover of which, as a last resort, his forces might be safely re- embarked for retreat. The veteran Massena was selected by the Emperor to drive the English out of Portugal. As he advanced, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... couple of hours every morning.' Look at that, now, it's better than the jetted lace! Two hours wouldn't interfere with me one bit, for I've all the day to do nothing. 'Apply personally between four and six at Seven, Fitzjames Crescent.' Only ten minutes' walk from me own door, as if it had been made on purpose to suit me! And quite a good-looking house it is, with real silk curtains ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... road and the ribs of the glorious celestial fan meeting together in the vista-like distance; and—oh, for the brush and palette and genius of a Turner!—one of the rainbow-tinted javelins spits the crescent moon and holds it to toast before the glowing sunset fires, like a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... nearly in the form of a crescent, stretching from the south-west towards the north-east. Its northern, or the Swiss shore, is chiefly what is called, in the language of the country, a cote, or a declivity that admits of cultivation; and, with ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... from their house in Crampton Crescent to Marlborough Street. It was too hot to walk very quickly. An August sun beat straight down into the street at three o'clock in the afternoon. Margaret went along, without noticing anything very different ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... pain, death and life merged together in an unbearable ecstasy. . . . With the first gleam of light, the first twitter of birds, I rose up and sat leaning on my left arm. He lay asleep with a vague smile about his lips like the crescent moon in the morning. The rosy red glow of the dawn fell upon his noble forehead. I sighed and stood up. I drew together the leafy lianas to screen the streaming sun from his face. I looked about me and saw the ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore

... Carrollton. There the vast Mississippi, leaving the sugar and rice fields of St. Charles and St. John Baptist parishes and still seeking the Gulf of Mexico, turns from east to south before it sweeps northward and southeast again to give to the Creole capital its graceful surname of the "Crescent City." Mile-wide, brimful, head-on and boiling and writhing twenty fathoms deep, you could easily have seen, that afternoon, why its turfed levee had to be eighteen feet high and broad in proportion. So swollen was the flood that ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... at the hall door looking for a moment after his friend—the friend he had tried to cast out of his heart as a recreant. The mist had cleared—the stars glittered countless in the frosty heaven; a golden crescent moon hung low; the lights and shadows lay almost poetically upon the little street. A rush of tender thoughts whelmed the musician's soul. He saw again the dear old garret, up the ninety stairs, in the Hotel Cologne, where he had lived with his dreams; he heard the pianos and violins going in every ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... dinner on a January night, in the library in Lady Britomart Undershaft's house in Wilton Crescent. A large and comfortable settee is in the middle of the room, upholstered in dark leather. A person sitting on it [it is vacant at present] would have, on his right, Lady Britomart's writing table, with the lady herself busy at it; a smaller writing table behind ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... his plumes and exhibits most wonderful scenes. Brahma appears throned upon the lotus; Sankara appears with the crescent moon, his glittering crest; Hari, the destroyer of the demon race, in whose four hands the bow, the sword, the mace and the shell are borne, is observable. Indra, the king of Swarga, is seen ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... blazing in cheering splendor. Out there in the center of the broad field a dozen men were silhouetted in the white brilliance, looking up at the sky, where the stars winked cold and clear on the jet background of the frosty night. A slim crescent of moon gleamed in the west, a sickle of light that in no way dimmed the cold flame of ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... the fire and made the soup, hoping every moment to see the old man come in. From time to time he went out to see if he were not coming. It was quite night now, that wan, livid night of the mountains, lighted by a thin, yellow crescent moon, just disappearing ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... valiantly defended against his predecessor, had fallen into his infidel hands. The gateways of western Europe were his; he had but to open them and march through; doubtless there had come to him glorious dreams of extending the empire of the crescent to the western seas. And yet the proud and powerful sultan was to be checked in his course by an obstacle seemingly as insignificant as if the sting of a hornet should stop the career of an elephant. The story is a remarkable one, and deserves ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris



Words linked to "Crescent" :   rounded, curve, curved shape



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