crescere

Crescent comes from Latin crescens, the present participle of crescere (to grow, to increase). A crescent moon is a growing moon — the thin sliver visible in the days after the new moon, waxing toward full. The word names not a shape but a process. A crescent is a thing in the act of becoming larger.

The crescent became a symbol of Islam, though its adoption was political, not theological. The Ottoman Empire used the crescent moon on its flags from the fifteenth century. When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, the crescent replaced the cross on the city's skyline. The symbol spread across the Islamic world through Ottoman political influence, not Quranic instruction. The Quran does not mention the crescent as a symbol of Islam. The Ottomans made it one.

The Red Crescent — the Islamic counterpart to the Red Cross — was established in 1876 during the Russo-Turkish War. The Ottoman Empire objected to the Red Cross symbol and substituted a crescent. The International Committee of the Red Cross recognized the Red Crescent in 1929. A third symbol, the Red Crystal, was added in 2005 for contexts where neither cross nor crescent is appropriate.

The croissant — the French pastry — is a crescent. The word croissant is the French present participle of croître (to grow), the same Latin root as 'crescent.' The legend that the croissant was invented to celebrate the defeat of the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 — bakers making crescent-shaped pastries to mock the Turkish flag — is probably false. But the shape is a crescent, the word means growing, and the story is too good for people to stop telling it.