[a. OF. crucefix, now crucifix, = Pr. crucific, Sp. crucifixo, It. crocifisso, ad. L. cruci fixus, later crucifixus, (one) fixed to a cross, crucified.]
† 1. The Crucified One; Christ on the cross.
14[?]. Prose Legends, in Anglia, VIII. 155. Þe deþe of þe crucifix [L. mortem crucifixi].
1485. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 168/4. To fore the ymage of the crucyfyxe.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 81 b. Suche may … with mekenes approche to the crucifixe and stande by hym.
a. 1633. Austin, Medit. (1635), 114. To take up our Crosse, and become, like him, a Crucifix.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., II. ix. 118. He that sweares by the Crosse, sweares by the Holy Crucifix, that is, Jesus crucified thereon. Ibid. (1660), Duct. Dubit., II. iii. Rule ix. § 31. The brazen serpent … was but a type and a shadow of the holy crucifix.
2. An image or figure (formerly also a pictorial representation) of Christ upon the cross.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 16. Ualleð a cneon to ower crucifix.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), V. 399. Wiþ a crucifix i-peynt in a table.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, VIII. xiii. (1554), 185 a. Where that euer he hath perceiued Crosse or crucifix, he brake them vengeably.
1553. Act 1 Mary Sess. II. c. 3 § 4. If anye person … shall … deface … or … breake any aulter … or any crucifixe or Crosse.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 20 July. To Lovett’s, there to see how my picture goes on to be varnished; a fine Crucifix.
1867. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, 3. There was no … crucifix or image to indicate a misguided reverence.
1885. Catholic Dict. (ed. 3), s.v., No crucifix has been found in the Catacombs; no certain allusion to a crucifix is made by any Christian writer of the first four centuries.
¶ Todd, misunderstanding Jeremy Taylor’s use of ‘holy Crucifix’ (in sense 1), inserted a conjectured sense ‘The cross of Christ; figuratively, the religion of Christ,’ an error which has been repeated in the Dictionaries.
The misuse of crucifix for ‘cross, figure of the cross,’ is frequent in writers of the 18–19th c.
1806. J. Grahame, Birds of Scot., 21. The red brick-wall, with flues, and chimney tops, Ans many a leafy crucifix adorned.
1827. G. Higgins, Celtic Druids, 126. I make a great distinction between a cross and a human figure nailed to a cross, two things which, under the name of crucifix, are so often confounded.
1848. Lytton, Harold, XII. vi. The simple imageless crucifix that stood on its pedestal at the farther end of the tent.
