Crisscrossed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Covered or decorated with lines that cross each other to form a pattern of squares or diamonds
2. Having lines or paths that intersect and form a grid-like or lattice arrangement
3. Characterized by crossing lines or intersecting marks creating a network of angles

Etymology: Before it meant a pattern of lines, "crisscross" was a religious name. In Middle English it appeared as "crist-crosse" or "crists-crosse," meaning "Christ's cross," and the phrase was used for the alphabet. Medieval primers often printed a cross before the letters, and the row of letters beginning with that mark was called the Christ-cross row, a name that stuck for the alphabet itself, which children learned from it. From that sense of a cross, the word gradually drifted toward the idea of lines running across one another. Over time the spelling shortened and the meaning loosened, until "crisscross" described any tangle or grid of intersecting lines. Its form is also a reduplication of "cross," with the vowel changed from "cross" to "criss," a playful doubling pattern common in English words like "zigzag" and "pell-mell." "Crisscrossed" is the past form of "crisscross," describing something marked with such crossing lines, as in a field of crisscrossed paths.

Synonyms: intersected, crossed, overlapped, interlaced, twisted