Meanings
Crescent City1
- A harbor city in northern California, United States, and the county seat of Del Norte County.
The waves, measuring at 3.6 feet, slammed into the Northern California coastline near the small enclave of Crescent City and Humboldt Bay, the National Weather Service Eureka announced.
2025 July 30, Nicholas McEntyre, “First tsunami waves strike mainland US in Northern California and Bay Area”, in New York Post, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2025 - A city in Putnam County, Florida, United States.
- A village in Iroquois County, Illinois, United States.
Crescent City2
- Nickname for New Orleans: a city in Louisiana, United States.
The phrase was, and remains, a double-edged sword: a testament to the hard-working and hard-living citizens of the Crescent City and an indicator of the “ah, whatever” shrug hanging over its corrupt politics, its ramshackle infrastructure and its belief that partying trumps all.
2015 August 12, Todd Leopold, “Return to the ‘City That Care Forgot’”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Jan 2022
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
From the city's crescent-shaped development around the Mississippi River, originally in reference to the older neighborhoods of New Orleans. This imaginary crescent might arc, for example, from the Warehouse District upriver to the Bywater neighborhood downriver, with the French Quarter at its midsection.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Crescent City. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Crescent%20City
“Crescent City.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Crescent%20City. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Crescent City,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Crescent%20City.
Source: Crescent City on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.