English
cross
Cross comes from Old English cros, from Old Norse kross, from Old Irish cros, from Latin crux.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcrux‘cross, gallows’
- Old Irishc. 600–900cros
- Old Norsec. 800–1350kross
- Old Englishc. 450–1150cros‘rood, cross’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cross‘a cross’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1591–1592cross
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcrux‘cross, gallows’
- Old Irishc. 600–900cros
- Old Norsec. 800–1350kross
- Old Englishc. 450–1150cros‘rood, cross’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cross‘a cross’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1591–1592cross
Earliest quotation: c. 1591–1592, William Shakespeare, The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]: “to cross me from the golden time I look…”
The story
In this sense displaced native Middle English rode, from Old English rōd (‘cross’); see English rood. The sense of "two intersecting lines drawn or cut on a surface; two lines intersecting at right angles" without regard to religious signification develops from the late 14th century.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ‘to cut off, sever’
short, share, card, cancer, score, shirt, screen, circle, circuit, curve, scare, crucial, circus, circulation, skirt, carnival, curb, scar, cancellation, shrine, circa, scrutiny, shear, scorpion, incarceration, crest, shred, carnage, coronary, raffle, circulate, corona, carcinoma, scorn, shrewd, shard, carnal, cirque, corolla, riddance, 118 more
through Latin crux ‘wooden frame on which criminals were…’
cruise, crusade, crucible, excruciating, crouch, crux, cruciform, 8 more
Today it means
noun A geometrical figure consisting of two straight lines or bars intersecting each other such that at least one of them is bisected by the other.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin crux / cross