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noun

Cresset n.

An open frame or basket of iron, filled with combustible material, to be burned as a beacon; an open lamp or firrepan carried on a pole in nocturnal processions. "Starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With naphtha and asphaltus." "As a cresset true that darts its length Of beamy luster from a tower of strength."

(Coopering) A small furnace or iron cage to hold fire for charring the inside of a cask, and making the staves flexible.

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Etymology of 'Cresset'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cresset" Quotes from Famous Books

... at first that was about all. A moment later grotesque shadows, rising and falling, focused his arousing perceptions. Presently he saw that he was in a cave. A dozen Waz-don warriors squatted about, talking. A rude stone cresset containing burning oil lighted the interior and as the flame rose and fell the exaggerated shadows of the warriors danced upon the ...

— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... his keys, donned a hood and woollen wrapper which he took down from a nail, and went coughing before me down the chill, draughty passages. I could hear the prisoners leaping from their couches within as the light of his cresset filtered beneath their doors. What hopes and fears stirred them! A summons, it might be, for some one in that dread warren to come up for a last look at the stars, a walk to the heading-place through the soft, velvet-dark night—then the block, the lightning flash of bright ...

— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett