ˈcross-piece
[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, 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 ‘Cross pieces’..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]. |