crease: [15] Crease and crest are ultimately the same word. The ridges produced by creasing cloth were regarded as similar to ridges or crests, and so the word crease (often creast in late Middle English) came to be applied to them. The loss of the final -t may have been due to the mistaken analysis of creast or crest as the past form of a verb. => crest
1660s, altered from creaste "a ridge," perhaps a variant of crest (n.), via meaning "a fold in a length of cloth" (mid-15c.) which produced a crest. In sports, first in cricket (1779), where it was originally cut into the ground. As a verb, from 1580s. Related: Creased; creasing.
