Word.ws English Dictionary

cross purposes

cross purposes noun: conflicting, or contrary meanings or ideas, usually arising unintentionally. Also the plural of cross purpose.

Noun

cross purposes

  1. (plural-noun) Conflicting, or contrary meanings or ideas, usually arising unintentionally.
    • "Well," continued Lavinia, "life is just like a comedy, only it does not end so pleasantly; but it has just as many cross purposes. Here I am in love with you, who care only for Miss Churchill; she, again, loves Mr. Courtenaye, and he loves only himself, as far as I can make out."1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Different Views of Life”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 108

Also used as

cross purposes is also the plural of cross purpose.

Questions about cross purposes

What does cross purposes mean?
Cross purposes means conflicting, or contrary meanings or ideas, usually arising unintentionally.
What part of speech is cross purposes?
Cross purposes is a noun.

Words near cross purposes in the dictionary

  1. cross potence
  2. cross potent
  3. cross product
  4. cross products
  5. cross purpose
  6. cross purposes
  7. cross resistance
  8. Cross River
  9. cross road
  10. cross roads
  11. cross sea

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cross purposes (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.

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