crusade

Meanings

Noun

• Any of the military expeditions undertaken by the Christians of Europe in the 11th to 13th centuries to reconquer the Levant from the Muslims.
• Any war instigated and blessed by the Church for alleged religious ends. Especially, papal sanctioned military campaigns against infidels or heretics.
• A grand concerted effort toward some purportedly worthy cause.
• A mass gathering in a political campaign or during a religious revival effort.
• A Portuguese coin; a crusado.

Verb

• To go on a military crusade.
• To make a grand concerted effort toward some purportedly worthy cause.

Origin

• From French croisade, introduced in English (in the French spelling) by 1575. The modern spelling emerges . Middle French croisade is introduced in the 15th century, based on Spanish cruzada (late 14th century) and Old Occitan crozada (early 13th century), both reflecting , cruxiata, the feminine singular of the adjective cruciātus used as an abstract noun.
• Adjectival cruciātus originally meant "tormented; crucified", but from the 12th century was also used for "marked with a cross; making the sign of the cross" and eventually "taking the cross" in the sense of "going on a crusade".
• Old Occitan crozada is used in the sense "[the Albigensian] crusade" in the Song of the Albigensian crusade, written c. 1213. From vernacular usage, Middle Latin cruciāta also comes to be used in the sense "crusade" from about 1270.