crescent

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The figure of the moon as it appears before its first quarter phase or after its third quarter phase, with concave and convex edges terminating in points.
• noun Something shaped like a crescent, such as a curved pastry or a curved street.
• adjective Crescent-shaped.
• adjective Waxing, as the moon approaching its first quarter phase; increasing.

from The Century Dictionary.

• 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.).
• Shaped like the appearance of the moon during its first quarter.
• noun The period of apparent growth or increase of the moon in its first quarter: as, the moon is in its crescent.
• noun 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.
• noun The moon itself in either its first or its last quarter; the new or the old moon.
• noun Something in the shape of the crescent moon; a crescent-shaped object, construction, device, or symbol.
• noun In heraldry, a bearing in the form of a young or new moon, usually borne horizontally with the horns uppermost. See decrescent and increscent.
• noun In architecture, a range of buildings in the form of a crescent or half-moon: as, Lansdowne Crescent in London.
• noun A Turkish military musical instrument with bells or jingles.
• noun A defect in a horse's foot, when the coffin-bone falls down.
• noun 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.
• noun A small roll of bread of various kinds, made in the form of a crescent.
• To form into a crescent.
• To surround partly in a semicircular or crescent form.
• noun The curved, sausage-shaped gametocyte of Laverania, the parasite of pernicious *malaria (which see, with cut).
• noun In certain extinct cardioid pelecypods, a lunate flattening of the shell-surface just behind the beaks. It specially characterizes the Devonian genus Honeoyea.
• noun In the extinct trimerellid brachiopods, a curved and narrow muscular scar on each valve just within the cardinal margin.
• noun In plate-armor, one of the small pieces of steel used to protect joints. See gusset .

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Shaped like a crescent.
• adjective Increasing; growing.
• noun 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.
• noun Anything having the shape of a crescent or new moon.
• noun A representation of the increasing moon, often used as an emblem or badge.
• noun A symbol of Artemis, or Diana.
• noun The ancient symbol of Byzantium or Constantinople.
• noun The emblem of the Turkish Empire, adopted after the taking of Constantinople.
• noun 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.
• noun (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.
• transitive verb rare To form into a crescent, or something resembling a crescent.
• transitive verb To adorn with crescents.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The figure of the moon as it appears in its first or last quarter, with concave and convex edges terminating in points.
• noun Something shaped like a crescent, especially:
• noun New Zealand A crescent spanner.
• adjective dated, rare marked by an increase; waxing, like the Moon.
• verb transitive To form into a crescent, or something resembling a crescent.
• verb transitive To adorn with crescents.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• adjective resembling the new moon in shape
• noun any shape resembling the curved shape of the moon in its first or last quarters