Recross

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To go back over a line, path, or boundary one has already crossed once before ; to draw a second line through something to strike it out or cancel it
2. To traverse the same route or threshold a second time ; to mark through text with an additional stroke so that it is deleted or voided
3. To pass over something again in the opposite direction or repeat a crossing ; to cancel or strike out writing by drawing a line across it

Etymology: "Recross" is a plain compound: the prefix "re-", meaning again, attached to the verb "cross". The verb "cross" traces back through Old English "cros", borrowed from Old Norse "kross" (a cross, a crucifix), and beyond that to Latin "crux", the word for a cross or stake. So the ancient instrument of execution and the simple act of going over a road have the same ancestry. The prefix has a longer path. "Re-" comes from Latin "re-", which English picked up through Old French and Middle English, and it carries the sense of doing something once more or going back. Pairing it with "cross" needed no special invention: once English had "cross" as a verb meaning to move from one side to the other, adding "re-" gave an obvious way to say to go over the same ground again, or, in writing, to draw a second line through text already marked.