[f. CREST sb.1 Cf. CRESTED.]
1. trans. To furnish with a crest; to put a crest, cresting, or ridge on (a building).
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 102. Crestyn, or a-rayyn wythe a creste (Pynson, or sette on a creest), cristo.
1814. Southey, Roderick, V. The Christian hand … had with a cross Of well-hewn stone crested the pious work.
1851. Turner, Dom. Archit., II. v. 215. The Sheriff … is ordered to crest with lead all the passages at Clarendon.
2. To serve as a crest to; to surmount as a crest; to top, to crown.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., V. ii. 83. His legges bestrid the Ocean, his rear’d arme Crested the world.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, VII. 11. Broad battlements Crested the bulwark.
1856. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., II. IV. iii. § 16. The clinging wood climbing along their ledges and cresting their summits.
b. ‘To mark with long streaks, in allusion to the streaming hair of the crest’ (Todd).
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. i. 13. Like as the shining skie in summers night … Is creasted all with lines of firie light.
3. To reach the crest or summit of (a hill, rising ground, wave, etc.).
1851. J. H. Newman, Cath. in Eng., 43. In this inquisitive age, when the Alps are crested, and seas fathomed.
1877. Kinglake, Crimea, VI. vi. 75. The … Ravine [was] forbiddingly hard to crest.
1860. Mayne Reid, in Chamb. Jrnl., XIV. 172. As we crested each swell, we were freshly exposed to observation.
4. intr. To erect one’s crest, raise oneself proudly. Now dial.
1713. Guardian, No. 56, ¶ 6. The bully seemed a dunghil cock, he crested well, and bore his comb aloft.
1791. Boswell, Johnson, 5 Oct. an. 1773. The old minister was standing with his back to the fire, cresting up erect.
5. intr. Of waves: To form or rise into a crest; to curl into a crest of foam.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, II. 235. Where wave on wave cresting on Bristles with angry breath.
1882. Geikie, Text-bk. Geol., III. II. ii. § 6. 422. The superficial part of the swell … begins to curl and crest as a huge billow.
