Etymology: = modern French croisade (= Old French croisee ), Provençal crozada , Spanish cruzada , Italian crociata , medieval Latin cruciata (cruzata ), being in the various languages the feminine noun of action formed on past participle of cruciāre , crociare , cruzar , croiser to cross v., literally a being crossed, a crossing or marking with the cross, a taking the cross: compare the early French croisement . The earliest and only Middle English equivalents were croiserie n. (13th–15th cent.), and croisee n. (15–17th cent.), from the corresponding Old French words. In 16th cent. French, croisée was displaced by croisade , with the new ending -ade suffix, adapted from the -ada of Provençal and Spanish. This croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760 (see Johnson's Dict.). About 1600, the Spanish cruzada made its appearance under the forms crusada and crusado (see -ado suffix); a blending of this with croisade produced two hybrid forms, viz. croisado (-ada ), with French stem and Spanish ending, frequent from c1611 to 1725, and crusade , with Spanish stem and French ending, mentioned by Johnson, 1755, only as a by-form of croisade , but used by Goldsmith and Gibbon, and now universal. From 15th to 17th centuries occasional attempts to adopt the medieval Latin and other Romanic forms, as cruciat , -ada , -ade , cruceat , were made: see cruciade n.

Etymology: < crusade n.