[CROSS- 6.] trans. To interrogate with questions that cross, or tend to check the results of, previous questions, so as to test the consistency and completeness of an account; to question closely or minutely; to cross-examine.
1760. Foote, Minor, I. Wks. 1799, I. 234. You will find, by cross-questioning him, whether he is a competent person.
1887. Jessopp, Arcady, iii. 67. There are moments when the desire to question and cross-question the vanished dead becomes a passionate longing.
Hence Cross-questioning vbl. sb.; Cross-questionable a., capable of being cross-questioned.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 8. When on his ranks together spring Cross-buttocks—and cross-questioning!
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), II. vi. 104. He was submitted to the closest cross-questionings, in the hope that he would commit himself.
1884. J. Hawthorne, Pearl-Shell Necklace, I. 48. There was nothing cross-questionable in such an old-wives’ tale.
