Obs. [CROSS- 9.] ? Some kind of caper or movement in dancing; cf. CROSS-CUT, CROSS-POINT. Said usually of a tailor, and often fig. in application.
1622. Massinger, Virg. Mart., IV. i. Had a tailor seen her At this advantage, he, with his cross capers, Had ruffled her by this.
1627. E. F., Hist. Edw. II. (1680), 31. His ends go not their ways, but with Cross-capers.
1634. Ford, P. Warbeck, II. iii. Sketon [a tailor]. For fashioning of shapes and cutting a cross-caper, turn me off to my trade again.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), I. s.v. Caper, A cross caper, Subsultatio.
Hence † Cross-caperer.
1607. Dekker, Knt.’s Conjur. (1842), 36. All the crosse-caperers beeing plac’d in strong rankes and an excellent oration cut out … perswading them to sweat out their braines in deuising new cuts, new French collers [etc.].
