[f. CROSS v.]
1. The marking with or making the sign of the cross.
1530. Palsgr., 211/1. Crossyng, croisee.
1548–9. (Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer, Offices, 37. As touching kneeling, crossing … and other gestures.
1884. Evangelical Mag., Jan., 9. As many genuflexions … and as many crossings as ever.
2. The action of drawing lines across; striking out, erasure; writing across other writing. Crossing off or out: striking off (an item), striking out (a word or entry) by drawing a cancelling line across it.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., vii. 366. By procuring the crossing of all the debt-books of our sins.
1848. Clough, Bothie, IV. 178. Your letter … was written in scraps with crossings and counter-crossings.
1866. Crump, Banking, iv. 90. The alteration or erasure of a crossing [of a cheque] is a forgery.
3. The action of passing across; intersecting; traversing; passage across the sea, a river, etc.
1575. Turberv., Venerie, 123. The crossings and doublings of the deare.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1851), I. 76. To follow … all the twistings, and crossings, and entanglements in those intricate subjects.
1805. Southey, Madoc in Azt., xxi. The complex crossings of the mazy dance.
1891. J. E. H. Thomson, Bks. wh. influenced our Lord, II. i. 271. The crossing of the great and wide sea to Rome to be sold in the slave market.
b. The action of crossing the path of another rider so as to obstruct him. Also fig. Cf. Cross and jostle in CROSS- B.
1796. Hull Advertiser, 23 April, 3/3. All the crossings and jostlings which the barrack-master … experienced.
1891. Daily News, 5 Nov., 3/3. May Rose, whose jockey, Allsopp, for boring and crossing, was suspended for the remainder of the meeting.
4. The place where two lines, tracks, bands, or the like, cross; intersection.
1828. Scott, Jrnl. (1890), II. 163. The ceiling … is garnished, at the crossing and combining of the arches, with the recurring heads of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn.
1874. Boutell, Arms & Arm., iv. 61. A ring, placed at the crossing of the two strengthening bands.
5. spec. a. The intersection of two streets, roads, lines of railway, etc. Level crossing: the intersection of a road and a railway, or of two railways, on the same level.
1695. Dryden, Observ. Painting, Wks. 1808, XVII. 401. Statues … in the crossing of streets, or in the squares.
1700. S. L., trans. Fryke’s Voy. E. Ind. 179. I was always upon my guard at Turnings and Crossings of Streets.
1840. F. Whishaw, Railways Gt. Brit., 24. Where gates are fixed at the level road crossings.
1889. G. Findlay, Eng. Railway, 51. The intersection of one rail with another at any angle is termed a ‘crossing,’ and these crossings are so constructed with wing rails and check rails as to guide the flange of the wheel, and ensure its taking the required direction.
b. Eccl. Arch. That part of a cruciform church where the transepts cross the nave.
1835. Whewell, Archit. Notes German Ch., i. 45, note. The portion of the building … over that space in the ground plan where the transept crosses the nave is called the crossing.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 13. If the pulpit be in the crossing.
6. The place at which a street, river, etc., is crossed by passengers.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., X. (1682), 426. Giving back to Toledo, I crossed the crossing Siera de Morada.
1763. Johnson, 23 July, in Boswell. Sweeping crossings in the streets.
1869. Trollope, He knew, etc. xxvi. (1878), 145. The fellow that sweeps the crossing.
7. Venery. (See quot.)
1611. Cotgr., Salade … the young head of a Deere (long, tender, woollie, and but beginning to braunch) tearmed by our Woodmen, the crossing.
8. A thwarting, opposing or contravening.
1580. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 377. Ye iarres and crossings of friends.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 36. Cousin: of many men I doe not beare these crossings.
1669. Woodhead, St. Teresa, I. Pref. (1671), 20. Macerations of the Body, and crossings of the Will.
1692. Ray, Dissol. World, II. ii. (1732), 83. It is a Crossing of Proverbs making Rivers to ascend to their Fountains.
9. The raising of animals or plants from individuals of different races; cross-breeding.
1851. Beck’s Florist, 170. We commenced a series of ‘crossings,’ with the view of remedying the … earliness of blooming and susceptibility to frost.
1879. trans. De Quatrefages’ Hum. Spec., 63. This crossing … is differently named according to whether it takes place between different races or different species.
10. Cheating, dishonest practice: see CROSS sb. 29.
1592. Greene, Def. Conny Catch. (1859), 18. Is our crossing at cardes more perillous to the commonwelth than this cossenage for land?
11. Comb., as crossing-place; crossing-sweeper, a person who sweeps a (street-) crossing.
1786. Francis, II. 43. Employed in procuring a clean crossing-place at the head of the Haymarket.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U. S., V. xiii. 471. His forces … guarded the crossing-places from the falls at Trenton to below Bristol.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xix. Making himself as cheap as crossing-sweepers.
