CROSS, n. [G., L.]

1. Transverse; oblique; passing from side to side; falling athwart; as, a cross beam. The cross refraction of a second prism. – Newton.
2. Adverse; opposite; obstructing; sometimes with to; as, an event cross to our inclinations.
3. Perverse; untractable; as, the cross circumstances of a man's temper. – South.
4. Peevish; fretful; ill humored; applied to persons or things; as, a cross woman or husband; a cross answer.
5. Contrary; contradictory; perplexing. Contradictions that seem to lie cross and uncouth. – South.
6. Adverse; unfortunate. Behold the cross and unlucky issue of my design. – Glanville.
7. Interchanged; as, a cross marriage, when a brother and sister intermarry with two persons who have the same relation to each other. – Bailey.
8. Noting what belongs to an adverse party; as, a cross interrogatory. – Kent.

1. A gibbet consisting of two pieces of timber placed across each other, either in form of a T or of an X. That on which our Savior suffered, is represented on coins and other monuments, to have been of the former kind. – Encyc.
2. The ensign of the Christian religion; and hence, figuratively, the religion itself.
3. A monument with a cross upon it to excite devotion, such as were anciently set in market places. – Johnson. Shak.
4. Any thing in the form of a cross or gibbet.
5. A line drawn through another. – Johnson.
6. Any thing that thwarts, obstructs, or perplexes; hinderance; vexation; misfortune; opposition; trial of patience. Heaven prepares good men with crosses. – B. Jonson.
7. Money or coin stamped with the figure of a cross. – Dryden.
8. The right side or face of a coin, stamped with a cross. – Encyc.
9. The mark of a cross, instead of a signature, on a deed, formerly impressed by those who could not write. Encyc.
10. Church lands in Ireland. – Davies.
11. In theology, the sufferings of Christ by crucifixion. That he might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross. – Eph. ii.
12. The doctrine of Christ's sufferings and of the atonement, or of salvation by Christ. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. – 1 Cor. i. Gal. v. To take up the cross, it to submit to troubles and afflictions from love to Christ.
13. In mining, two nicks cut in the surface of the earth, thus, +. Cross and pile, a play with money, at which it is put to chance whether a coin shall fall with that side up which bears the cross, or the other, which is called pile, or reverse.

Athwart; transversely; over; from side to side; so as to intersect. And cross their limits cut a sloping way. – Dryden. This is admissible in poetry, as an abbreviation of across.

1. To lie or be athwart.
2. To move or pass laterally, or from one side toward the other, or from place to place, either at right angles or obliquely; as, to cross from Nantucket to New Bedford.
3. To be inconsistent; as, men's actions do not always cross with reason. [Not used.] – Sidney.

1. To draw or run a line, or lay a body across another; as, to cross a word in writing; to cross the arms.
2. To erase; to cancel; as, to cross an account.
3. To make the sign of the cross, as Catholics in devotion.
4. To pass from side to side; to pass or move over; as, to cross a road; to cross a river or the ocean. I crossed the English Channel, from Dieppe to Brighton, in a steam-boat, Sept. 18, 1824. – N. W.
5. To thwart; to obstruct; to hinder; to embarrass; as, to cross a purpose or design.
6. To counteract; to clash or interfere with; to be inconsistent with; as, natural appetites may cross our principles.
7. To counteract or contravene; to hinder by authority; to stop. [See No. 5.]
8. To contradict. – Bacon. Hooker.
9. To debar or preclude. – Shak. To cross the breed of an animal, is to produce young from different varieties of the species.

1. A gibbet, consisting of two pieces of timber placed transversely upon one another, in various forms, as a T, or +, with the horizontal piece below the upper end of the upright, or as an X. It was anciently used in the execution of criminals.
   
   

   Nailed to the cross
   By his own nation.
   Milton.

2. Not parallel; lying or falling athwart; transverse; oblique; intersecting.
   
   

   The cross refraction of the second prism.
   Sir I. Newton.

3. Athwart; across.
   
   
   [Archaic or Colloq.]

   A fox was taking a walk one night cross a village.
   L'Estrange.

   To go cross lots, to go across the fields; to take a short cut. [Colloq.]

4. To put across or athwart] to cause to intersect; as, to cross the arms.
5. To lie or be athwart.
6. A throw in which the wrestler turns his left side to his opponent, places his left leg across both legs of his opponent, and pulls him forward over his hip; hence, an unexpected defeat or repulse.
7. The sign or mark of the cross, made with the finger, or in ink, etc., or actually represented in some material; the symbol of Christ's death; the ensign and chosen symbol of Christianity, of a Christian people, and of Christendom.
   
   

   The custom of making the sign of the cross with the hand or finger, as a means of conferring blessing or preserving from evil, is very old.
   Schaff-Herzog Encyc.

   Before the cross has waned the crescent's ray.
   Sir W. Scott.

   Tis where the cross is preached.
   Cowper.

8. Not accordant with what is wished or expected; interrupting; adverse; contrary; thwarting; perverse.
   
   
   "A cross fortune." Jer. Taylor.

   The cross and unlucky issue of my design.
   Glanvill.

   The article of the resurrection seems to lie marvelously cross to the common experience of mankind.
   South.

   We are both love's captives, but with fates so cross,
   One must be happy by the other's loss.
   Dryden.

9. To lay or draw something, as a line, across; as, to cross the letter t.
10. To move or pass from one side to the other, or from place to place; to make a transit; as, to cross from New York to Liverpool.
11. Affiction regarded as a test of patience or virtue; trial; disappointment; opposition; misfortune.
    
    

    Heaven prepares a good man with crosses.
    B. Jonson.

12. Characterized by, or in a state of, peevishness, fretfulness, or ill humor; as, a cross man or woman.
    
    

    He had received a cross answer from his mistress.
    Jer. Taylor.

13. To pass from one side to the other of; to pass or move over; to traverse; as, to cross a stream.
    
    

    A hunted hare . . . crosses and confounds her former track.
    I. Watts.

14. To be inconsistent.
    
    
    [Obs.]

    Men's actions do not always cross with reason.
    Sir P. Sidney.

15. A piece of money stamped with the figure of a cross, also, that side of such a piece on which the cross is stamped; hence, money in general.
    
    

    I should bear no cross if I did bear you; for I think you have no money in your purse.
    Shak.

16. Made in an opposite direction, or an inverse relation; mutually inverse; interchanged; as, cross interrogatories; cross marriages, as when a brother and sister marry persons standing in the same relation to each other.
    
    

    Cross action (Law), an action brought by a party who is sued against the person who has sued him, upon the same subject matter, as upon the same contract. Burrill. -- Cross aisle (Arch.), a transept; the lateral divisions of a cruciform church. -- Cross axle. (a) (Mach.) A shaft, windlass, or roller, worked by levers at opposite ends, as in the copperplate printing press. (b) A driving axle, with cranks set at an angle of 90° with each other. -- Cross bedding (Geol.), oblique lamination of horizontal beds. -- Cross bill. See in the Vocabulary. -- Cross bitt. Same as Crosspiece. -- Cross bond, a form of bricklaying, in which the joints of one stretcher course come midway between those of the stretcher courses above and below, a course of headers and stretchers intervening. See Bond, n., 8. -- Cross breed. See in the Vocabulary. -- Cross breeding. See under Breeding. -- Cross buttock, a particular throw in wrestling; hence, an unexpected defeat or repulse. Smollet. -- Cross country, across the country; not by the road. "The cross-country ride." Cowper. -- Cross fertilization, the fertilization of the female products of one physiological individual by the male products of another, -- as the fertilization of the ovules of one plant by pollen from another. See Fertilization. -- Cross file, a double convex file, used in dressing out the arms or crosses of fine wheels. -- Cross fire (Mil.), lines of fire, from two or more points or places, crossing each other. -- Cross forked. (Her.) See under Forked. -- Cross frog. See under Frog. -- Cross furrow, a furrow or trench cut across other furrows to receive the water running in them and conduct it to the side of the field. -- Cross handle, a handle attached transversely to the axis of a tool, as in the augur. Knight. -- Cross lode (Mining), a vein intersecting the true or principal lode. -- Cross purpose. See Cross-purpose, in the Vocabulary. -- Cross reference, a reference made from one part of a book or register to another part, where the same or an allied subject is treated of. -- Cross sea (Naut.), a chopping sea, in which the waves run in contrary directions. -- Cross stroke, a line or stroke across something, as across the letter t. -- Cross wind, a side wind; an unfavorable wind. -- Cross wires, fine wires made to traverse the field of view in a telescope, and moved by a screw with a graduated head, used for delicate astronomical observations; spider lines. Fixed cross wires are also used in microscopes, etc.

    Syn. -- Fretful; peevish. See Fretful.

17. To pass, as objects going in an opposite direction at the same time.
    
    
    "Your kind letter crossed mine." J. D. Forbes.
18. To interbreed, as races; to mix distinct breeds.
    
    

    If two individuals of distinct races cross, a third is invariably produced different from either.
    Coleridge.

19. An appendage or ornament or anything in the form of a cross; a badge or ornamental device of the general shape of a cross; hence, such an ornament, even when varying considerably from that form; thus, the Cross of the British Order of St. George and St. Michael consists of a central medallion with seven arms radiating from it.
20. To run counter to; to thwart; to obstruct; to hinder; to clash or interfere with.
    
    

    In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.
    Shak.

    An oyster may be crossed in love.
    Sheridan.

21. A monument in the form of a cross, or surmounted by a cross, set up in a public place; as, a market cross; a boundary cross; Charing Cross in London.
    
    

    Dun-Edin's Cross, a pillared stone,
    Rose on a turret octagon.
    Sir W. Scott.

22. To interfere and cut off; to debar.
    
    
    [Obs.]

    To cross me from the golden time I look for.
    Shak.

23. A common heraldic bearing, of which there are many varieties. See the Illustration, above.
24. To make the sign of the cross upon; -- followed by the reflexive pronoun; as, he crossed himself.
25. The crosslike mark or symbol used instead of a signature by those unable to write.
    
    

    Five Kentish abbesses . . . .subscribed their names and crosses.
    Fuller.

26. To cancel by marking crosses on or over, or drawing a line across; to erase; -- usually with out, off, or over; as, to cross out a name.
27. Church lands.
    
    
    [Ireland] [Obs.] Sir J. Davies.
28. To cause to interbreed; -- said of different stocks or races; to mix the breed of.
    
    

    To cross one's path, to oppose one's plans. Macaulay.

29. A line drawn across or through another line.
30. A mixing of breeds or stock, especially in cattle breeding; or the product of such intermixture; a hybrid of any kind.
    
    

    Toning down the ancient Viking into a sort of a cross between Paul Jones and Jeremy Diddler.
    Lord Dufferin.

31. An instrument for laying of offsets perpendicular to the main course.
32. A pipe-fitting with four branches the axes of which usually form's right angle.
    
    

    Cross and pile, a game with money, at which it is put to chance whether a coin shall fall with that side up which bears the cross, or the other, which is called pile, or reverse; the game called heads or tails. -- Cross bottony or bottoné. See under Bottony. -- Cross estoilé (Her.). a cross, each of whose arms is pointed like the ray of a star; that is, a star having four long points only. -- Cross of Calvary. See Calvary, 3. -- Southern cross. (Astron.) See under Southern. -- To do a thing on the cross, to act dishonestly; -- opposed to acting on the square. [Slang] -- To take up the cross, to bear troubles and afflictions with patience from love to Christ.