Crosses

How to spell crosses

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce crosses

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does crosses mean?

1. verbMoves from one side of something to the other, or draws a line through something.
2. nounMore than one cross: upright marks, intersections, or X-shaped symbols.

Crosses in a sentence

• verb

  She crosses the road carefully every morning on her way to work.

• noun

  The survey form asked her to mark two crosses in the relevant boxes.

• verb

  The accountant always crosses off each invoice once it has been paid.

• noun

  Carved wooden crosses hung in rows along the chapel wall.

Where does crosses come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the inflected form of 'cross', a word that traces back to the Latin crux, meaning a wooden stake or the cross on which condemned people were executed. The Latin word travelled into Old Irish as cros and was carried by missionaries into Old English, where it began to settle as 'cross' rather than the native term 'rood'. Over the centuries the noun broadened from the religious symbol to any X-shaped or intersecting mark, and the verb grew from the idea of laying one line over another, giving senses such as moving from one side to another or thwarting someone. The added '-es' here marks either a plural noun or a third-person singular verb, a regular ending used after the hissing 's' sound so the word stays pronounceable. The same crux root still sits inside 'crucial', 'crucify', and 'excruciating', all of which carry the old image of the cross.

How the word is built

• cross (from Latin crux: a cross, stake)
• -es (plural/third-person verb suffix)