croissant
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of croissant
1895–1900; < French: literally, crescent
Explanation
A croissant is a buttery, crescent-shaped French pastry. Good croissants are light, flaky, and delicately sweet. Enjoy one with a cup of coffee — preferably while sitting in a charming Parisian cafe. The croissant gets its name from its shape: in French, the word means "crescent" or "crescent of the moon." The Austrian pastry known as a Kipferl is the croissant's ancestor—in the 1830s, an Austrian opened a Viennese bakery in Paris, which became extremely popular and inspired French versions of the Kipferi, eventually named the croissant.
Vocabulary lists containing croissant
Stairway To Leaven: Baking Vocabulary
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World Cuisine - Introductory
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World Cuisine - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Winocour’s filmmaking itself is as steely as a Parisian’s gaze after you order the last croissant à la pâtisserie.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2026
I use it two days later to buy a loaf of rye bread, plus pastries for Salmon and me: ham-and-cheese croissant, cinnamon bun.
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
Bar hopefuls fill four or five diner-style tables, drinking beer and snacking on menu fare ranging from made-to-order pizza to chicken tinga tacos and farm fresh eggs on a croissant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
“I don’t want to have a croissant made by a robot,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
She sees Kat sitting at that back table of Essential Baking Company, reading and eating an almond croissant, drinking green tea as Annabelle makes complicated coffee drinks for the other customers.
From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti
For non-smokers, this came primarily from consuming contaminated food including breakfast cereals, bread, croissants and other pastries, biscuits, rice and potatoes, it said.
From Barron's ● May 13, 2026
So Radonich made changes, adding more shuttle trips and switching up the morning food offerings, adding things like breakfast burritos and stuffed croissants.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 24, 2026
Later, the counter began to crowd with flaky croissants, sticky pastry, brioches with amber sheen.
From Salon ● Feb. 5, 2026
We stayed at the same rental as last year and this time they were extra solicitous, gifting us not one but two packages of frozen croissants from the Utah tradwife influencer Ballerina Farm.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2026
And you not going to have no breakfast tray brought in to you early in the morning with a red rose on it and two warm croissants and a cup of hot chocolate.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
