[from verbal phrase to cross over.]
1. Textile Fabrics. A fabric having the design running across from selvedge to selvedge, instead of along the length.
1795. Hull Advertiser, 23 May, 1/2. 1273 yards of … cotton cross-over.
1860. All Year Round, No. 53. 63. The barragons … quiltings, and cross-overs … for which Bolton was famous.
b. Calico-printing. A bar or stripe of color printed across another color.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, IV. 326. Printed as a crossover, it darkens the indigo where it falls.
2. A woman’s wrap (usually knitted, or of crochet-work) worn round the shoulders and crossed upon the breast.
1868. (The name was then in current use.)
1884. Mrs. Coote, Sure Harvest, vi. 69. Mrs. Timmins will never lose her rheumatism till she has a warm crossover to wear over that thin old dress.
1886. Besant, Childr. Gibeon, I. ii. She would wear a grey ulster or a red crossover.
3. U.S. A connection between the up and down lines of a railway by which trains are shunted from one to the other.
1884. T. W. Higginson, in Harper’s Mag., July, 272/2. The incoming trains approach the city on the western track until they reach the ‘cross-over,’ which throws them to the eastern track.
