cresset
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See also: Cresset
English
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Cresset_%28PSF%29.png)
Etymology
[edit]From Middle English cresset, from Old French crasset, cresset (“sort of lamp or torch”); perhaps of Old Dutch or Old High German origin, and akin to English cruse and/or French creuset (“crucible”), the latter being from Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin *croceolus.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ˈkɹɛsɪt/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
[edit]cresset (plural cressets)
- A metal cage, basket or cup with fire in it, used for various purposes:
- (chiefly historical) A metal cup, suspended from or attached to the top of a pole and filled with burning pitch etc., used as portable illumination.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
- Starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed / With naphtha and asphaltus.
- 1835, William Wordsworth, Stanzas suggested in a Steamboat off St. Bees' Head, on the coast of Cumberland:
- As a cresset true that darts its length / Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength.
- A metal basket filled with burning material, used to attract fish when night fishing; a fire basket.
- (coopering) A small furnace or iron cage to hold fire for charring the inside of a cask, and making the staves flexible.
- 1805–1814, Dante Alighieri, Henry Francis Cary (translator), The Divine Comedy, "Inferno", Canto VIII
- We reach'd the lofty turret's base, our eyes / its height ascended, where we mark'd uphung / two cressets and another saw from far
- 1805–1814, Dante Alighieri, Henry Francis Cary (translator), The Divine Comedy, "Inferno", Canto VIII
- (chiefly historical) A metal cup, suspended from or attached to the top of a pole and filled with burning pitch etc., used as portable illumination.
Translations
[edit]metal cup filled with pitch
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See also
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]Middle English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Old French crasset, cresset, possibly from a West Germanic language.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]cresset (plural cressettes)
- cresset (metal cup filled with pitch)
Descendants
[edit]- English: cresset
References
[edit]- “cresset, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from French
- English terms derived from Vulgar Latin
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- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
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- en:Containers
- en:Light sources
- Middle English terms borrowed from Old French
- Middle English terms derived from Old French
- Middle English terms derived from West Germanic languages
- Middle English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Middle English lemmas
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- enm:Containers
- enm:Light sources