v. [CROSS- 6.] trans. To couple things that do not naturally go together. Hence † Cross-couple sb., Cross-coupling vbl. sb., Puttenham’s term for the rhetorical figure synœciosis, ‘whereby heterogeneous things were combined or attributed to one person.’
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xix. (Arb.), 216. Another figure which … may well be called … the Cross-couple [marg. Syneciosis, or the Crosse copling].
1681–6. Scott, Chr. Life, II. 363. There will be no more … such cross-coupling of Prosperity with Vice and Misery with Virtue.
