Across

How to spell across

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce across

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does across mean?

1. prepositionFrom one side to the other of something, or positioned on the opposite side.

Across in a sentence

• The bakery sits just across the road from the station.

• They walked across the bridge to reach the old town.

Where does across come from?

Language of origin: French

This word began in Old French as the phrase a croix or en croix, meaning literally 'in a cross' or 'in the form of a cross', built on the Latin crux, which named the wooden cross or stake. Medieval English speakers borrowed the idea and ran the words together, first appearing as 'acrosse' or 'a-cross' in the 1500s. The sense shifted from the literal idea of something laid crosswise to the broader meaning of moving from one side to the other. The familiar noun and verb 'cross' share the very same Latin crux root, which is why the spelling keeps the single c followed by the doubled-looking 'ss' ending. A common trap for adults is writing it with a double c (the incorrect 'accross'), since the prefix swallows neatly into the body of the word.

How the word is built

• a- (on/in, from Old English an)
• cross (from Latin crux: cross)