Re: obsolete or obsolescent

trio@xxxxxxxxxx had it ...

Mike Barnes <mikebarnes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In alt.usage.english, Peter Moylan wrote:
Of course the bread called a "croissant" is named
after the shape of the waxing moon.

But presumably the bread could just as easily have been named after the
*waning* moon, which is exactly the same shape but the other way up.

Right, both are called crescents now, but not at first. Some OED dates
would be nice. because this shift from "increasing" to "shape of partial
moon" to "bread roll" probably took several centuries.

OED for the adjective crescent, below. I like "allusion" - not often
seen these days.

I. 1. Growing, increasing, developing. (Often with some allusion to
the moon.)

1574 T. HILL Conject. Weather i, When all cressent things do bud
forth. 1606 SHAKES. Ant. & Cl. II. i. 10 My powers are Cressent, and
my Auguring hope Sayes it will come to th' full. a1624 R. CRAKANTHORP
Vigil. Dormitans 188 In the first the Pope was but Antichrist
nascent, in the second Antichrist crescent, in the third Antichrist
regnant. 1834 WORDSW. Lines on Portrait 47 Childhood here, a moon
Crescent in simple loveliness serene. 1845 DE QUINCEY Coleridge &
Opium Wks. 1890 V. 196 The wrath of Andrew, previously in a crescent
state, actually dilated to a pleni~lunar orb. 1859 TENNYSON Elaine
447 There is many a youth Now crescent, who will come to all I am And
overcome it.

II. 2. Shaped like the new or old moon; convexo-concave,
lunulate.

1603 HOLLAND Plutarche's Rom. Quest. (1892) 33 The moone..beginneth
to show herself croissant in the evening. 1635 E. PAGITT
Christianogr. 100 Marked with the Moone Crescent, which is the
Turkish Ensigne. 1667 MILTON P.L. I. 439 With these in troop
Came..Astarte, Queen of Heav'n, with crescent Horns. 1725 TURNER in
Phil. Trans. XXXIII. 411 An Insect..with..a crescent or forked Tail.
1831 BREWSTER Newton (1855) I. xi. 273 Galileo discovered that Venus
had the same crescent phases as the waxing and the waning moon. 1860
RUSSELL Diary India I. 359 New Orleans is called the =3Fcrescent city=3F
in consequence of its being built on a curve of the river.

and for croissant - your "several centuries" is right:

= CRESCENT n. 6.

1899 W. C. MORROW Bohem. Paris 139 The odor of hot rolls and
croissants. 1928 R. MACAULAY Keeping up Appearances i. §2 Foaming
coffee and milk, the crusty roll, the little tender croissant. 1958
X. FIELDING Corsair Country 96 We're having coffee and croissants in
the sort of square you would come across in any of the larger French
Mediterranean seaports. 1970 New Yorker 6 June 64/2 Resident
jockeys..were being offered..the French racing papers, with their
coffee and croissants.


--
David
.

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