cross-dress
US/ˈkɹɔsˈdɹɛs/
cross-dress verb: to wear clothes typically associated with the opposite sex.
Verb
cross-dress (third-person singular simple present cross-dresses, present participle cross-dressing, simple past and past participle cross-dressed)
- To wear clothes typically associated with the opposite sex.
- The need to cross-dress is no more understood than the natural forms of differing sexual orientation.1976 December 11, Sarah Montgomery, “Plea For Tolerance”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 24, page 4
- To display (on the surface of a dendritic cell) antigens produced by a different cell.
- Such DC are cross-dressed because they are wearing peptide-MHC complexes generated by other cells.2006 November 1, Brian P. Dolan et al., “Dendritic Cells Cross-Dressed with Peptide MHC Class I Complexes Prime CD8+ T Cells”, in Journal of Immunology, volume 177, number 9, →DOI, pages 6018–6024
Synonyms of cross-dress
Forms of cross-dress
| third-person singular present | cross-dresses |
|---|---|
| present participle | cross-dressing |
| past participle | cross-dressed |
| past | cross-dressed |
| alternative form | crossdress |
| alternative form | xdress |
Origin of cross-dress
From cross- + dress.
Words formed from cross-dress
Questions about cross-dress
- What does cross-dress mean?
- Cross-dress means to wear clothes typically associated with the opposite sex.
- What part of speech is cross-dress?
- Cross-dress is a verb.
- How do you pronounce cross-dress?
- Cross-dress is pronounced /ˈkɹɔsˈdɹɛs/ (US).
- What is the past tense of cross-dress?
- The past tense of cross-dress is cross-dressed.
Words near cross-dress in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cross-dress (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:
Cite this entry: “cross-dress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cross-dress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.