croissant

What it means

1. A flaky roll or pastry in a form of a crescent.

   By my side was the empty bowl in which the concierge had brought me my café au lait and the fragment of croissant which I had not had appetite enough to eat. I heard the concierge in the next room emptying my bath.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XXXIV, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, page 175

   Synonyms: crescent, crescent roll

In a sentence

By my side was the empty bowl in which the concierge had brought me my café au lait and the fragment of croissant which I had not had appetite enough to eat. I heard the concierge in the next room emptying my bath.

1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XXXIV, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, page 175

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱer-
2. Proto-Indo-European*ḱreh₁-sḱéti
3. Latincrēscō
4. Latincrēscentem
5. Old Frenchcreissant
6. Old Frenchcroisant
7. Frenchcroissant
8. Englishcroissant

Unadapted borrowing from French croissant (“crescent”), present participle of croître (“to grow”). Doublet of crescent.