crescând

Crescând is a term with uses in different languages and contexts. It is most commonly encountered in music notation in its Italian form crescando, and also appears as a Romanian-language gerund form related to growth or increase.

In Italian music notation, crescando is the present participle of crescere (to grow). As a performance direction, it indicates that the music should gradually become louder, a process that often leads toward a crescendo. It describes the dynamic growth of a passage and is typically related to, but distinct from, the more common term crescendo or its abbreviation cresc.

In Romanian, crescând is encountered as a gerund or participial form derived from the verb a crește, meaning to grow or to increase. It conveys an ongoing process of growth or escalation within a sentence. In standard Romanian orthography, the corresponding form is creșând, but crescând may appear in some texts, particularly in older or nonstandard spellings.

Etymologically, both uses trace back to the Latin crescere, meaning "to grow." The Italian musical sense preserves a direct link to growth in dynamics, while the Romanian form reflects the broader family of Romance-language participles and gerunds formed with the suffix -ând.

See also: crescendo, crescere, Crescendo (music).