[CROSS- 4.]
1. A piece of any material placed or lying across anything else.
1607. Topsell, Serpents (1653), 785. With many lines and different crosse pieces.
1715. Leoni, Palladio’s Archit. (1742), I. 89. Over these rows of piles were plac’d Joysts … (those Joysts so placed are vulgarly call’d cross-pieces).
1827. G. Higgins, Celtic Druids, 212. The single Lithos, or upright stone or pillar … with a cross-piece on the top.
1853. Sir H. Douglas, Milit. Bridges (ed. 3), 239. A second row of beams was laid on cross-pieces placed athwart the first.
b. Ship-building. (See quots.)
1706. [see CROSS-BEAM].
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Cross-piece, a rail of timber extended over the windlass of a merchant-ship from the knight-heads to the belfry. It is stuck full of wooden pins, which are used to fasten the running-rigging.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 113. Cross-pieces, the pieces of timber bolted athwartships to the bitt-pins, for taking turns with the cable, or belaying ropes to.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 66. What are the ‘cross pieces’?
They are pieces of timber placed across the keel, which is let into them, they assist to form what is called the floor.
c. A small transverse piece forming the cross-guard of a sword or dagger.
1874. Boutell, Arms & Arm., ii. 12. There is no guard for the hand, nor is the hilt separated from the blade by any cross-piece.
d. Anat. The corpus callosum, or transverse mass connecting the two hemispheres of the brain.
† 2. [CROSS a. 5.] A perverse or ill-tempered person. Obs. Cf. CROSS-PATCH.
1614. Wilson, Inconst. Lady (N.). The rugged thoughts That crosse-peece of your sex imprinted in mee.
1694. Echard, Plautus, 92. Since y’ had the good luck t’ outlive that Cross Piece [your wife].
