crescendo

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian crescendo (“increasing”),^[2][3][4][5] which the OED, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford call the present participle of crescere (“to increase, grow”);^[2][6][7] Etymonline and Barnhart trace it to the ablative of the gerund of the Latin verb,^[3][4] and Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to another form of the gerund.^[8][9] The Italian verb is from Latin crēscō (“to grow, increase”),^[2][6][10] from Proto-Indo-European *ker- (“to grow”).^[3][6] The Latin verb is also the source of crescent,^[2][4][8] and Hoad links the Italian verb with increase.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A musical direction that the tone is to grow gradually louder, and as a noun a gradual increase of volume: 1776, in J. Collier's Musical Travels.^[2][3][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1775 for the noun.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense, a progressive increase in force or effect, followed in 1785, in a letter of Richard Twining;^[2][4][3] Weekley noted that the noun was often figurative.^[11] The word was used attributively or as an adjective from 1859, in the Saturday Review,^[2][4] of a voice growing louder from 1865,^[2] and as a verb from 1900, in the Westminster Gazette.^[2][3][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the adverb, the direction in music, to 1807.^[9] The colloquial sense of the peak of such an increase, a climax, especially in reach a crescendo, is recorded from 1887.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls it an Americanism of the early 20th century, quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald (1926) and William Faulkner (1931).^[9]

Timeline

• 1776 – a musical direction to grow louder; as a noun, a gradual increase of volume.^[2][3][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the noun to 1775.^[9]
• 1785 – figuratively, a progressive increase in force or effect.^[2][4][3]
• 1807 – adverb, with an increase in volume.^[9]
• 1859 – attributively or as an adjective.^[2][4]
• 1865 – a gradual increase in loudness of voice.^[2]
• 1887 – the peak of an increase, a climax.^[2]
• 1900 – verb, to increase gradually in loudness or intensity.^[2][3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (music) A gradual increase in loudness or intensity of sound; also a passage played in this way, or the direction or sign marking it.^{[12][9][6][2]}
2. Any gradual increase in force or intensity: a steady crescendo of complaints from the neighbours.^{[9][6][12][2]}
3. The peak of such an increase; a climax: The applause reached a crescendo as the curtain fell.^{[12][9][6][2]}

Adjective

1. Gradually increasing in loudness, force or intensity.^[6][12][2]

Adverb

1. (music) With a gradual increase in volume, as a direction to performers.^{[9][6][7][12]}

Verb

1. To increase gradually in loudness or intensity, or to build up to a peak: The storm crescendoed shortly after midnight.^{[9][6][12][2]}

Related words

• crescent
• increase
• decrescendo

Usage notes

The sense "peak, climax" has been criticised by those who hold that, after the musical sense, the figurative use should mean only a gradual increase.^[9][1] In the American Heritage Dictionary's 1988 survey 55 percent of the Usage Panel rejected it in a sentence about a crowd's noise reaching a crescendo; in 2006, 55 percent accepted the same sentence.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged finds the disputed sense increasingly popular in Britain and America and now much more common than the sense of a gradual increase,^[9] and Grammarphobia reports that most standard dictionaries accept both.^[13] Wiktionary calls it nonstandard but commonplace.^[1] The plural is crescendos or crescendi,^[12][6] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has crescendoes.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ O'Conner, Patricia T.; Kellerman, Stewart, The Grammarphobia Blog, grammarphobia.com, p. "The lowdown on ‘crescendo’", 23 June 2017