crosier

name

1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English; originally referring to the staff bearer, from a merger of Old French words crocier (“bearer of a cross”) and croisier (“one who bears or has to do with a cross”), ultimately from Latin crux (“cross”).

1. A staff with a hooked end similar to a shepherd's crook, or with a cross at the end, carried by an abbot, bishop, or archbishop as a symbol of office.

   “[…]the lives of the Latin clergy were more corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword.”

   ““Nay, most gracious sovereign,” answered the Hermit, (well known to the curious in penny-histories of Robin Hood, by the name of Friar Tuck,) “it is not the crosier I fear, but the sceptre. […]””

2. A young fern frond, before it has unrolled.