[CROSS- 3, 4.]
1. Naut. (pl.) Two horizontal cross-timbers supported by the cheeks and trestle-trees at the head of the lower and top masts, to sustain the tops on the lower mast, and to spread the top-gallant rigging at the top mast head; affording also a standing-place for seamen.
Formerly sometimes used to include the trestle-trees.
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 12. The trussell trees or crosse trees. Ibid. (1627), Seaman’s Gram., iii. 16. The Crosse-trees are also at the head of the Masts, one let into another crosse, and strongly bolted with the Tressell trees.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. s.v. Cross-trees, They are four in number … but strictly speaking only those which go thwart ships, are called cross-trees.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789).
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xiii. 68.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6), I. vi. 214. I climbed the mainmast, and, standing on the cross-trees, saw the sun set.
† 2. a. A gallows; b. A cross. Obs. (nonce-uses.)
1638. Ford, Fancies, I. ii. Not so terrible as a cross-tree that never grows, to a wag-halter page.
1648. Herrick, Noble Numbers, Poems (1885), 317. This Cross-tree Here Doth Jesus Bear.
† 3. A whipple-tree. Obs.
1765. Dickson, Agric., II. 258. Instead of using a soam, and cross-trees for the second pair, as is commonly done in a four horse plough.
4. attrib. † cross-tree bar (cf. 3); † cross-tree yard, a cross-jack yard.
1692. in Capt. Smith’s Seaman’s Gram., I. xiv. 63. The Cross-tree yard, Cross-tree Braces.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Cross-tree-yard, a yard standing square just under the mizen top.
1787. Winter, Syst. Husb., 310. A cross-tree bar must be fixed to the fore standards.
