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half-moon, n.
1. The moon, when only half its disk appears illuminated; more loosely, a crescent.
1530Palsgr. 230/1 Halfe moone, croissant de la lune. 1583Stanyhurst æneis i. (Arb.) 33 With targat, an haulf⁓moone Lykning. 1631Widdowes Nat. Philos. (ed. 2) 13 The Moone..when she is horned, or halfe moone. 1660Hickeringill Jamaica (1661) 11 A sharp Iron in form of an half-moon, fastened to a staffe.
2. Applied to various things of the shape of a half-moon or crescent; a figure or outline of this shape; a formation of ships, men, etc., drawn up crescent-wise; the ‘Crescent’ or Turkish power; on a finger-nail.
1581Styward Mart. Discipl. i. 24 The which..is the battaile called the halfe moone. 1596Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iii. i. 100 And cuts me from the best of all my Land, A huge halfe Moone, a monstrous Cantle out. 1608Middleton Mad World, my Masters iii. iii, To wear half-moons made of another's hair. 1659B. Harris Parival's Iron Age 242 She [Venice] was not able alone, to sustain the weight of the Half-Moon. 1671Milton P.R. iii. 304 See how in warlike muster they appear, In rhombs and wedges, and half-moons, and wings. 1726Amherst Terræ Fil. xlviii. 256 A half-moon is the Turkish arms. 1883M. Morris Bk. of Health 912 The laminæ in the half moon, or lunula, near the root, are not supplied so abundantly with blood-vessels as those beneath the rest of the nail. 1893H. A. Macpherson Partridges iv. 173 When he directed the half-moon it was a most beautifully executed manœuvre. 1914Joyce Dubliners 84 The half-moons of his nails were perfect. 1952E. Grierson Reptutation for Song xvii. 144 The nails trimmed short, the half-moons only crescents, almost swallowed by the encroaching skin.
3. Fortif. = demilune 2.
1642Rogers Naaman 101 Out-workes, halfe-moones and retrenchments to hold the enemy. 1712E. Cooke Voy. S. Sea 149 A Half-Moon, on which six Guns may be planted. 1807Pike Sources Mississ. (1810) 19 Some were half moons and quite a breastwork.
†4. A cuckold; in allusion to his ‘horns’. rare.
1659Shirley Honoria & Mammon iii. i, Bow in homage to your sovereign antlers, Most high and mighty half-moon, prince of beccos.
5. Mining. Scaffolding filling up one half the sectional area of a circular pit-shaft, on which repairs are done.
1883Gresley Gloss. Coal-Mining.
6. attrib. and Comb. Shaped like a half-moon, as half-moon battery, half-moon bit, half-moon roof, half-moon shoe; half-moon-shaped, half-moon-like adjs.; half-moon knife, a double-handed knife used by the dresser of skins for parchment (Knight Dict. Mech. 1875); half-moon spectacles (or glasses, specs), spectacles having lenses shaped like half-moons, used esp. for reading.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 324 Shooe him with half-moon shooes called ‘Lunette’. 1772Forster in Phil. Trans. LXII. 396 Marks..half-moon shaped. 1794Nelson 22 Feb. in Nicolas Disp. (1845) I. 359 The two guns mounted en barbette, are now making a half-moon battery. 1875G. J. Whyte-Melville Riding Recoll. iii. (1879) 58 What I believe is called the half-moon bit, of which the bridoon, having no joint, is shaped so as to take the curve of the animal's mouth. 1952B. Malamud Natural 73 Pop, wearing half-moon specs. 1969‘G.’ North Procrastination of Sergeant Cluff xiv. 133 The Duty-constable's reading glasses, wire⁓framed, half-moon, perched on the tip of his nose. 1969C. Booker Neophiliacs viii. 207 Lord Home..looked out over his half-moon spectacles and read the message. 1972P. Townsend Zoom! xi. 190 He put on his half-moon spectacles and glanced over them.
Hence half-moon v. trans., to surround like a half-moon; intr. to move in a half-moon formation. half-mooned a., shaped like a half-moon; semilunate.
1611Coryat Crudities, Praise of Travel, In his halfe-mooned chair. 1707W. Funnell Voy. (1729) 151 Fins..stretching to his tail, which is half-moon'd. 1791Miss Seward Let. 30 July, A pretty little lawn, half-mooned by the house and shrubberies. 1893H. A. Macpherson Partridges iv. 175 Half-mooning should always be done across the drills if possible. |