créquier

From French créquier, from Old French crekere, derived from Old French creque, creke, borrowed from Middle Dutch crieke, related to Middle High German kreke (whence German Krieche (“damson plum”)).

créquier (plural créquiers)

1. (heraldry) A highly stylized tree of seven (less commonly, five) symmetrical branches, typically also depicted fruited, typically identified in English and French heraldic works as a wild cherry or wild plum.
   • 1882, Notes and Queries, page 419:

     83, the arms of the Créquy family are the créquier gules on a field or; see the picture.

   • 1896, John Woodward, A Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign: With English and French Glossaries, page 335:

     Gules, a créquier argent, are the arms of LE JOSNE (now LE JEUNE) Marquis DE CONTOY. Argent , a nut tree eradicated vert, is borne by NOZIER, and NOGARET in France, and by FACCHINETTI in Italy.

• 1892, John Woodward, George Burnett, A Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign: With English and French Glossaries, page 318:

  The wild cherry tree, in French créquier, is depicted in the ancient conventional manner in the arms of the French Ducs de CRÉQUY (Plate XXIX., fig. 4; and, better, on p. 344, fig. 72). D'Azur, au créquier d'or, is the coat of ANAUT. […]

• 1894, Henry Gough, James Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, page 143:

  Crequer plant, (fr. créquier) : is described as a wild plum-tree, or cherry-tree, the fruit of which bears the name of 'creques' in the patois of Picardy, and from […]

• 2009 06, Charles Norton Elvin, A Dictionary of Heraldry, Genealogical Publishing Com, →ISBN, page 37:

  Crequer plant, or Crequier. The wild plum. P. 44, f. 51. By some it is termed "seven-branched candlestick of the temple." Crequer plant of seven branches eradicated, as borne by the family of Girflet. Crequier. See Crequer.

• 2012 April 20, Terence Wise, Medieval Heraldry, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

  The charge on his arms is a stylized wild cherry tree, in French créquier, and his arms are therefore of the type known as canting arms. Jean de Créquy was a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (instituted.

From Middle French crequier, from Old French crekere, equivalent to crèque +‎ -ier.

• IPA^(key): /kʁe.kje/

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créquier m (plural créquiers)

1. blackthorn tree (Prunus spinosa)
2. bullace tree (Prunus domestica ssp. insititia)
3. hence, Prunus × fruticans, a natural hybrid of the two aforementioned difficult to distinguish from the blackthorn
4. (heraldry) a créquier, a stylized tree or thornbush resembling a chandelier

• crecquier, criquier (obsolete)

• “créquier”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.