crisscross
/ˈkɹɪsˌkɹɒs/
crisscross verb: to move back and forth over or through.
Verb
crisscross (third-person singular simple present crisscrosses, present participle crisscrossing, simple past and past participle crisscrossed)
- 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
- To mark with crossed lines.
Noun
crisscross (countable and uncountable, plural crisscrosses)
- A pattern of crossed lines.
- We reach the first barrier, which is like the barriers blocking off roadworks, or dug-up sewers: a wooden crisscross painted in yellow and black stripes, a red hexagon which means Stop.1985, Margaret Atwood, “Shopping”, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page 30
- A mark or cross, such as the signature of a person who is unable to write.
- 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
- A child's game played on paper or on a slate, consisting of lines arranged in the form of a cross.
Adjective
crisscross (not comparable)
Adverb
crisscross (not comparable)
- Crossing one another.
crisscross meaning in Indonesian
crisscross in Indonesian
- move back and forth
- serang-serong
- mark with crossed lines
- menyilang
Examples of crisscross in a sentence
- A network of roads crisscrossed the country.
- Crisscrossed by dirt roads, the rustic setting in the mountains of Yunnan province offered few amenities.
- For one, he crisscrossed the Midwest buying old carpets from dentists' offices.
Forms of crisscross
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | crisscrosses |
| present participle | crisscrossing |
| past participle | crisscrossed |
| past | crisscrossed |
| alternative form | criss-cross |
| Noun | |
| plural | crisscrosses |
Origin of crisscross
From Middle English crist-crosse, crists-crosse (“Christ's cross”). By surface analysis, an apophonic reduplication of cross.
Words formed from crisscross
Questions about crisscross
- What does crisscross mean?
- Crisscross means to move back and forth over or through.
- What is crisscross in Indonesian?
- Crisscross in Indonesian is serang-serong, menyilang. See Crisscross meaning in Indonesian.
- What part of speech is crisscross?
- Crisscross can be a verb, a noun, an adjective or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce crisscross?
- Crisscross is pronounced /ˈkɹɪsˌkɹɒs/.
- What is the past tense of crisscross?
- The past tense of crisscross is crisscrossed.
Words near crisscross in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: crisscross (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-crisscross.wav.
Cite this entry: “crisscross.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crisscross. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.