[CROSS- 9.]
† 1. An obsolete game at cards: see RUFF. Obs.
1592. Greene, Def. Conny Catch. (1859), 6. As thus I stood looking on them playing at cros-ruffe, one was taken revoking.
1693. Poor Robin’s Alm., in Brand, Pop. Antiq. (1870), II. 307. And men at cards spend many idle hours, At loadum, whisk, cross-ruff, put, and all-fours.
2. Whist. (See quot. 1862.)
1862. ‘Cavendish,’ Whist (1870), 28. A Cross-ruff (saw or see-saw) is the alternate trumping by partners of different suits, each leading the suit in which the other renounces.
1885. R. A. Proctor, Whist, vii. 76. More tricks are usually gained by the cross ruff than the opponents can afterwards make out of their suits.
fig. 1889. Sat. Rev., 9 Nov., 515. The trades are to establish a cross-ruff at the expense of the employers.
