[CROSS- 4.]
1. A transverse bar; a bar placed or fixed across another bar or part of a structure.
1562. Churchw. Acc. Eltham, in Stahlschmidt, Bells of Kent (1887), 271. A crosbar for the bell.
1611. [see CROSS-BARRED].
1823. Crabbe, Techn. Dict. Cross-bars (Mar.), round pieces of iron, bent at each end, and used as levers to turn the shanks of the anchor.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xxvi. 267. We had already cut up and burned the runners and cross-bars of two sledges.
† b. = Cross-bar shot: see 5. Obs.
1557. W. Towrson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 120. We sent them some of our stuffe, crosse barres and chain shot and arrowes.
1712. E. Cooke, Voy. S. Sea, 351. We fir’d above 300 great Shot, about 50 Cross Bars.
2. A transverse line or stripe: cf. BAR sb.1 5.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 238. In their crossings … the Greeke … begins his crosse-barre on the right side, and the Latin on the left.
1694. Ray, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 200. A tail … marked with crosse-bars.
† 3. The ‘bar sinister,’ the heraldic mark of illegitimacy. Obs.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., I. v. § 13. To shew that no Crosse-barre of Bastardy … can bolt Grace out of that Heart, wherein God will have it to enter.
1732. Gentleman Instr. (ed. 10), 11 (D.). Few are in love with Cross-bars, and to be brother to a by-blow is to be a bastard once removed.
† 4. fig. An impediment, hindrance, obstruction; an untoward circumstance, misfortune. Obs.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 46. Hence grew my cros-bars.
1616. R. C., Times’ Whistle, iii. 1151. But now this boy, which stands as a crosse-barre Twixt him and home, doth all his fortunes marre.
5. Comb., as cross-bar window; cross-bar shoe, = bar-shoe (see BAR sb.1 30); cross-bar shot, orig. a ball with a bar projecting on each side of it; later, a projectile that expanded on leaving the gun into the form of a cross, with one quarter of the ball at each radial point: cf. BAR-SHOT.
1675. Lond. Gaz., No. 1030/4. A light gray Mare … lame in the neer Foot before, and a *Cross-bar shoe under the same Foot.
1591. Raleigh, Last Fight Revenge (Arb.), 19. Discharged with *crossebarshot.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., xiv. 67. Crosbar-shot is also a round shot, but it hath a long spike of Iron cast with it as if it did goe thorow the middest of it.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 453. Something like the chain or cross bar shot used in sea engagements, only instead of a bar between, the whole consisted of seven balls.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Cross-bar-shot … when folded it presented a … complete shot.
