[CROSS- 4 a, b.]
1. (Usually cross cut.) A cut or cutting across or from side to side; a direct path between two points, transverse or diagonal to the main way.
1800. Spirit Pub. Jrnls., IV. 186. If you have occasion to travel frequently to one place, take all the cross cuts.
1837. R. Ellison, Kirkstead, 27. Deep cross-cuts lurk the treacherous shrubs below.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., V. xiv. 492. He knew the by-ways … and the cross-cuts and roads as far as Brunswick.
2. Mining. A cutting across the course of a vein, or across the general direction of the workings.
1789. J. Williams, Min. Kingdom (1810), I. 312. It is … proper to push forward cross cuts from your first trench every way.
1851. Greenwell, Coal-trade Terms Northumb. & Durh., 20. Crosscut, an excavation driven at an acute angle to the direction of the cleavage or cleat.
1872. Raymond, Statist. Mines, 326. A cross-cut is being run from the main shaft … 95 or 100 feet below the surface.
3. A step in dancing.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes (1850), 62/2. Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut.
4. Short for Cross-cut file: see next, 2.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, I. 302. For working iron … the single lines are closely cut over diagonally and the file becomes a cross-cut.
