1. Marked with a cross, or with the sign of the cross; bearing or wearing a cross; having taken the cross. † Crossed friars: = CRUTCHED friars.
1494, 1530. [see CRUTCHED].
1529. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), V. 276. To be beried … under a crossed stone.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, II. 1226. Many crossed Nobles were assembled at Lions, to goe to the Holy Land.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), III. 341. The animal is called the crost fox.
1795. trans. Mercier’s Fragments, II. 426. Her crossed and mitred son.
1851. Dickens, Child’s Hist. Eng., xv. 124. White-crossed … they rushed into the fight.
2. Placed or lying across each other; marked with lines drawn across; (of a letter) written with lines crossing at right angles.
1834. Medwin, Angler in Wales, I. 235. A line … to which they attach several large crossed hooks.
1865. Trollope, Belton Est., i. 8. She did not … correspond with other girls by means of crossed letters.
1877. Punch, LXXII. 280/1. ‘Crossed cheques’ are only payable through bankers.
3. fig. Thwarted, opposed, etc.
1621. Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 203. All fortunes pass’d in my cross’d loue.
1691. trans. Emilianne’s Frauds Rom. Monks, 227. How great a change crost Desires are able to produce in the Body of man.
1798. Landor, Gebir, Wks. 1846, II. 488. Lest … crost ambition lose his lofty aim.
† b. Having a ‘cross’ to bear; afflicted. Obs.
a. 1732. T. Boston, Crook in Lot (1805), 99. The afflicted crossed party … is a gainer thereby, if his spirit is brought down to it.
4. Crossed (out): a. obliterated or canceled by crossing lines; b. Watchmaking: see quot. 1874.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Crossed out, when the web of a wheel is sawed and filed away so as to leave a cross of four spokes or arms, it is said to be crossed out.
1884. F. J. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 69. [A] crossed out wheel.
