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

crisscross

3.9
In a way that lines or paths cross each other
  • adverb
  • /ˈkrɪsˌkrɔs/
translation icon : 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
12 3.1
crisscross
3.9
back and forth
374 2.0
crosswise
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.