cross-legged, ppl. a.
(ˈkrɒsˌlɛgd, ˈkrɔːs-)
[cross- 11.]
Having the legs crossed (usually of a person in a sitting posture).
| c 1530 Ld. Berners Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814) 252 Some sytting before their owne dores, croslegged. 1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1698) I. xii. 329 They use no Chairs, but sit cross-legg'd like Taylors on the floor. 1867 Whittier Tent on Beach xiv, In the tent-shade..[He] Smoked, cross-legged like a Turk, in Oriental calm. |
b. Having one leg laid across the other.
| 1631 Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 274 An armed knight crosse legged is to bee seene. 1762–71 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) IV. 207 Bishops in cumbent attitudes and cross-legged templars. 1850 Cooper Hist. Winchelsea 132 Canopied tombs of cross-legged secular warriors. |
In this sense sometimes ˈcrossed-legged.
| 1845 G. A. Poole Churches xii. 118 note, All these figures of crossed-legged persons have been popularly referred to Templars. 1864 Boutell Heraldry ix. 54 The shield of a crossed-legged knight in the Temple Church. |
Hence cross-leggedness, nonce-wd.
| 1852 G. W. Curtis Wand. Syria 236 He naturally fell into the cross-leggedness of oriental sitting. |