Word.ws English Dictionary

cross someone's T

cross someone's T verb: to sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return.

cross someone's t: to sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's...
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

cross someone's T (third-person singular simple present crosses someone's T, present participle crossing someone's T, simple past and past participle crossed someone's T)

  1. To sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return.
    • No sooner has the fleet settled onto this course than a small group of Japanese cruisers and actual, real, live, all-singing, all-dancing, all-features-included, protected-by-the-Emperor torpedo boats begin to move to cross the T of the Russian fleet. Worried about a torpedo attack on his lead...2019 September 18, Drachinifel, 12:24 from the start, in Battle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse..., archived from the original on 04 Dec 2022

Forms of cross someone's T

third-person singular presentcrosses someone's T
present participlecrossing someone's T
past participlecrossed someone's T
pastcrossed someone's T

Origin of cross someone's T

From the shape formed by the opposing battle lines, which resembles a capital letter T.

Questions about cross someone's T

What does cross someone's T mean?
Cross someone's T means to sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return.
What part of speech is cross someone's T?
Cross someone's T is a verb.
What is the past tense of cross someone's T?
The past tense of cross someone's T is crossed someone's T.

Words near cross someone's T in the dictionary

  1. cross sections
  2. cross someone's mind
  3. cross someone's palm
  4. cross someone's palm with silver
  5. cross someone's path
  6. cross someone's T
  7. cross spider
  8. cross spiders
  9. cross springer
  10. cross springers
  11. Cross Street

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cross someone's T (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)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-cross someone's T.wav.

Cite this entry: “cross someone's T.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cross_someone%27s_t. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.