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

crisscross

1 3.9
In a way that lines or paths cross each other
  • adverb
  • /ˈkrɪsˌkrɔs/
: en forma cruzada
  • The children sat crisscross on the floor, ready for story time.

I go in there and he's sitting straight up crisscross applesauce just like weeping.

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Examples

  • She laid the ribbons crisscross on the gift box to create a beautiful design.

  • The streets in the old town were arranged crisscross, making it easy to get lost.

  • I go in there and he's sitting straight up crisscross applesauce just like weeping.

    George Janko

How Crosswise

zigzag
6 3.1
crisscross
1 3.9
back and forth
475 2.0
crosswise
4 4.1

Surface Forms

crisscross positive

Morphology

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

The adverbial sense follows the same reduplicative crossing pattern, but the criss element is not a productive standalone morpheme.

Etymology

Crisscross used as an adverb shows movement that goes in crossing directions, and the word is just criss + cross, both meaning 'cross'. So when paths or lines move crisscross, they cross over one another many times.