Word.ws English Dictionary

crest

/kɹɛst/

crest noun: the summit of a hill or mountain ridge.

crest: the summit of a hill or mountain ridge
Image: Francis C. Franklin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

crest (plural crests)

  1. The summit of a hill or mountain ridge.
  2. A tuft, or other natural ornament, growing on an animal's head, for example the comb of a cockerel, the swelling on the head of a snake, the lengthened feathers of the crown or nape of bird, etc.
    Synonyms:
    comb, cockscomb
  3. The plume of feathers, or other decoration, worn on or displayed on a helmet; the distinctive ornament of a helmet.
  4. A bearing worn, not upon the shield, but usually on a helmet above it, sometimes (as for clerics) separately above the shield or separately as a mark for plate, in letterheads, and the like.
    • I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
  5. The upper curve of a horse's neck.
  6. The ridge or top of a wave.
    • Then, too, the same flutter is observed when it glides over the crest of a wave, but this probably only occurs when the wind lies in a certain direction from the axis of flight.1926, Ernest Bade, Science and Invention, volume 17, Experimenter Publishing Company, page 462
  7. The helm or head, as typical of a high spirit; pride; courage.
  8. The ornamental finishing which surmounts the ridge of a roof, canopy, etc.
  9. The top line of a slope or embankment.
  10. A ridge along the surface of a bone.
  11. (informal) A design or logo, especially one of an institution, sports club, association or high-class family.
    • Hungry for fame and the approval of rare-animal collector Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton), Darwin deceives the Captain and his crew into believing they can get enough booty to win the pirate competition by entering Polly in a science fair. So the pirates journey to London in cheerful, blinkered...2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits :”, in The Onion AV Club
  12. Any of several birds in the family Regulidae, including the goldcrests and firecrests.

Verb

crest (third-person singular simple present crests, present participle cresting, simple past and past participle crested)

  1. (intransitive) Particularly with reference to waves, to reach a peak.
    • The Skagit and Snohomish Rivers, which run through the region, are predicted to crest at record levels.2025 December 12, Sam Sifton, “Why Is It So Hard to Build Big Things?”, in The New York Times
    • Freud’s cultural and scientific influence crested some 70 years ago, and much of psychiatry’s history since then has consisted of a renunciation of the man, his concepts, and his therapeutic techniques so comprehensive as to have an edge of savagery, even vengeance, to it.2026 August 4, Scott Stossel, “What if Freud Was Right?”, in The Atlantic
  2. (transitive) To reach the crest of (e.g. a hill or mountain).
    • the land rolls gently, so that, upon cresting a low rise or passing a copse of wind turbines, you suddenly spot a lot full of lorries or a complex of gigantic sheds.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian
  3. (transitive) To furnish with, or surmount as, a crest; to serve as a crest for.
    • His legs bestrid the ocean, his reared arm / Crested the world.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    • groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow1815, William Wordsworth, Extracts from An Evening Walk
  4. (transitive) To mark with lines or streaks like waving plumes.
    • Like as the shining skie in summers night, / What time the dayes with scorching heat abound, / Is creasted all with lines of firie light1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 13

Proper noun capitalized: Crest

Crest

  1. A census-designated place in San Diego County, California, United States.
  2. A surname.

Noun (2) capitalized: CREST

CREST

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of comparisons, reasons, examples, statistics, testimony, the five types of verbal support used to enhance an oral presentation.

crest meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Kannada and Punjabi

crest in Marathi

क्रेस्ट

crest in Urdu

کریسٹ

crest in Kannada

ಕ್ರೇಸ್ಟ್

crest in Punjabi

ਕਰੈਸਟ, ਕ੍ਰੈਸਟ
More languagesFewer languages
crest in Gujarati
ક્રેસ્ટ
crest in Odia
କ୍ରେଷ୍ଟ, କ୍ରେଷ୍ଟ୍
crest in Nepali
क्रेस्ट
crest in Tagalog
tuktok
crest in Malay
puncak
crest in Indonesian
gombak, jambak, jambul
crest in Persian
ستیغ setiɣ, خوچ xuč, پوپ pup, کاکل kâkol
crest in Vietnamese
mào, đỉnh sóng, ngọn sóng

Examples of crest in a sentence

  • The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.
  • Spoutings of lava shot from the crest of the volcano.
  • He called himself Lord So-and-So, even had his family crest on the wall, but it was all totally make-believe.

All 40 example sentences with crest

Synonyms of crest

Forms of crest

Noun
pluralcrests
Verb
third-person singular presentcrests
present participlecresting
past participlecrested
pastcrested

Past tense of crest: crested

Plural of crest: crests

Origin of crest

From Middle English creste, from Old French creste (modern French crête) and perhaps continuing Old English cræsta (“crest, tuft, plume”); both ultimately from Vulgar Latin *cresta, from Latin crista. Doublet of crista. The informal meaning “design, logo” (noun sense 11) stems from a misinterpretation of the heraldic noun sense 4, which specifically refers to the object placed on top of the helm.

Words formed from crest

Phrases with crest

Words that rhyme with crest

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crest

What does crest mean?
Crest means the summit of a hill or mountain ridge.
What is crest in Marathi?
Crest in Marathi is क्रेस्ट. See Crest meaning in Marathi.
What part of speech is crest?
Crest can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce crest?
Crest is pronounced /kɹɛst/.
What is the plural of crest?
The plural of crest is crests.

Words near crest in the dictionary

  1. Cressmans
  2. Cresson
  3. Cresswell
  4. Cresswells
  5. cressy
  6. crest
  7. crest cloud
  8. crest clouds
  9. CREST syndrome
  10. crest tile
  11. crest tiles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crest (page history and authors); Crest (page history and authors); CREST (page history and authors); crest (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crest (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crest (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crest (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crest (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crest (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); crest (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-crest.wav.

Cite this entry: “crest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.