crisscross

Etymology

From Middle English crist-crosse, crists-crosse (“Christ's cross”).

verb

1. (transitive) To move back and forth over or through.
   As it turned out, the itinerary was disconcertingly illogical, involving criss-crossing America in anything but a straight line. 2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 71
   He told me about all the odd jobs he'd taken after I was born, when Michigan's economy was tanking. For one, he crisscrossed the Midwest buying old carpets from dentists' offices. 2008 October, Davy Rothbart, “How I caught up with dad”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 8, →ISSN, page 112
   Throughout this period, and beyond, into the rest of the battle, aircraft of various types and loadouts are crisscrossing the skies in desperate harassment attacks, with the pilots having to play constant games of "guess the carrier" to decide where to land as escort carriers are hit, sunk, disappear in columns of shell splashes, or are forced to evade at angles to the wind that make landing on them impossible. 27 February 2019, Drachinifel, 27:22 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 2022-11-03
2. (transitive) To mark with crossed lines.

noun

1. (countable) A pattern of crossed lines.
2. (countable) A mark or cross, such as the signature of a person who is unable to write.
3. (countable) A kind of crossword puzzle having no clues or definitions, but only a list of words that must be fitted into the grid.
   A definite advantage of the fact that no fill-in-the-blank sentences are used is that it's very easy for kids to enter their own words and see them instantly transformed into crisscrosses, word searches, and other fun games. 1992, Judy Salpeter, Kids and Computers: A Parent's Handbook, page 213
   Welcome to the Ultimate Puzzle Challenge — a brand-new series of books for children who love word searches, crisscrosses, mazes, crosswords, and variety puzzles. 2010, Helene Hovanec, Ultimate Puzzle Challenge: Mind Mashers, page 3
4. (obsolete, uncountable) A child's game played on paper or on a slate, consisting of lines arranged in the form of a cross.

adj

1. Marked with crossed lines.

adv

1. Crossing one another.