Forms: 5 (pl. creneuls, creneaux), 8–9 crennel, 9 crenel, -ell(e. [a. OF. (12th c.) crenel, pl. creniaus (mod.F. créneau, -eaux). OF. variants were kernel, karnel, whence also Eng. CARNEL, KERNEL q.v. The Fr. word is app. dim. of cren, cran notch (of which however Littré has no example before 15th c.); see CRENA and cf. CRANNY.]
1. One of the open spaces or indentations alternating with the merlons or cops of an embattled parapet, used for shooting or launching projectiles upon the enemy; an embrasure: see BATTLEMENT. In pl. = Battlements, embattled parapet.
1481. Caxton, Godfrey, 179. It shold be fasted to the creneaux of the walle, with good and stronge crochettes of yron. Ibid., cxx. 181. Thenne cam to the creneuls, and put oute his heede and called his peple.
1774. T. West, Antiq. Furness (1805), 371. The walls, which, in most castles, were topped by a parapet, and a kind of embrasures called crennels.
1813. Scott, Trierm., III. ix. Crenell and parapet appear. Ibid. (1819), Leg. Montrose, x. The … palisades should be artificially framed with re-entering angles and loop-holes, or crenelles, for musketry.
1877. Dixon, Diana, Lady Lyle, II. VII. i. 174. A high curtain of masonry, pierced by many windows, some mere crennels of defence, others embayed and mullioned.
2. Bot. = CRENATION, CRENATURE.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), I. 271. When the … teeth are rounded, they become crenels.
