Crossover

How to spell crossover

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce crossover

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does crossover mean?

1. nounA point or place at which something passes or changes from one side, state, or system to another.
2. nounA work, or commercial success, that combines different genres or brings together characters or audiences from separate series.
3. nounA passenger vehicle that blends features of a hatchback and a sport utility vehicle.

Crossover in a sentence

• The report marked the crossover from paper records to a fully digital system.

• The film was a rare crossover that appealed to both action fans and comedy lovers.

• They traded the saloon for a compact crossover with more boot space.

• Engineers built a crossover so trains could switch tracks at the junction.

• The comic book crossover featured heroes from two different universes in one story.

• The dealership advertised the crossover as fuel efficient yet roomy enough for a family.

Where does crossover come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining 'cross' and 'over', both of which are very old elements in the language. 'Cross' arrived through Old English and Old Norse from the Latin crux, meaning the wooden frame of a 'cross', and it came to describe the act of moving from one side of something to the other. 'Over' is a native Germanic word, found in Old English as 'ofer', meaning 'above' or 'across'. The two were welded together in the late 1800s, first in railway and engineering use for a track or line that lets something pass from one side to another. From there the sense broadened in the twentieth century to cover music and entertainment that crosses between styles or audiences, and later a class of motor vehicle that blends features of two body types. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the only real spelling question is remembering that it is written solid, with no space and no hyphen.

How the word is built

• cross (to move from one side to another)
• over (across, beyond) = compound noun/adjective