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Glite Dictionary
🔀 To cross back and forth ✏️ To mark with lines 🕸️ A crossing pattern ➰ Marked with lines ↔️ In crossing ways
to crisscross

to crisscross

6 3.4
To draw lines that cross each other on something
  • verb
  • /ˈkrɪsˌkrɔs/
translation icon : entrecruzar
  • The artist used bright colors to crisscross the canvas with bold lines.
  • crisscross lines

So you're just going to have a just an incredible mishmash of possible possible lines all crisscrossing, right?

Examples

  • As the sunlight broke through the trees, shadows crisscrossed on the ground.

  • The switchboard operators crisscrossed the wires into the fight slots.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Then I just take these Bobby pins and crisscross them right underneath.

  • To him, the raw jungle is crisscrossed with signs of human interference.

    Academic text (2008)

  • Someone had taken a sharp instrument and crisscrossed the photograph with cutting lines.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Typically, a research ship with SONAR crisscrosses the ocean in a grid pattern, marking the water.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Heavy oak beams crisscrossed the ceiling, while the tall windows were draped in velvet gloom.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Machines with intricate tubing and wing arms stand beside conveyor belts crisscrossing the room at different levels.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • The asphalt paths that crisscross the grassy lawns have gone a mercurial gray and slick with moonlight.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • The surveyor crisscrossed the field with his measuring tape to mark the boundaries.

Synonyms

to checker
vsto crisscross
  • US
20 5.8

To mark a surface with a pattern of squares in different colors

uses intersecting lines or paths more broadly not only square or colored designs
to check
vsto crisscross
12 4.2

Draw crossed lines to make a pattern of squares

marks with intersecting lines or paths in a more general way
to crosshatch
vsto crisscross
  • Specialized
1 7.2

To shade an area by drawing crossing parallel lines

covers with intersecting lines or paths but not only for shading

How Crossed

to crosshatch
  • Specialized
1 7.2
to crisscross
6 3.4
to cross
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

crisscross infinitive
crisscrossed past
crisscrossed past participle
crisscrossing present participle
crisscrosses third person singular

Morphology

crisscross = cross (semi-transparent) = criss + cross

The pattern of intersecting lines is fairly predictable from cross, but the criss element is an expressive reduplicative form that is not independently meaningful to most learners.

Etymology

Crisscross as a verb comes from the parts criss and cross, both meaning 'cross', and the repetition shows doing it many times. To crisscross something is to mark or cover it with crossing lines or X shapes.