Word.ws English Dictionary

crossstaff

crossstaff is the alternative form of cross-staff.

Meaning of cross-staff

Noun

cross-staff (plural cross-staffs or cross-staves)

  1. (obsolete) An archbishop's cross.
  2. (historical) An early instrument, consisting of a wooden rod with a sliding crosspiece, used for measuring the altitude of a star or for surveying.
    • The cross-staff is a very simple instrument, a calibrated shaft along which a bar slides.2015, David Wootton, The Invention of Science, Penguin, published 2016, page 188

Forms of crossstaff

pluralcrossstaffs

Questions about crossstaff

What is crossstaff the alternative form of?
Crossstaff is the alternative form of cross-staff.

Words near crossstaff in the dictionary

  1. crossruffing
  2. crossruffs
  3. crosssection
  4. crosssectional
  5. crosssections
  6. crossstaff
  7. crossstaffs
  8. crosst
  9. crosstab
  10. crosstable
  11. crosstables

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crossstaff (page history and authors); cross-staff (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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Cite this entry: “crossstaff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crossstaff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.