double-cross
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
12 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "double-cross", 12-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "double-cross" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "double-cross" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
double-cross is aEnglishverb. It means: To betray or go back on; to deceive someone after having gained their trust and led them to believe that they were being aided.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | double-cross |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for double-cross is 12 letters long, classified as averb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for double-cross in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: First recorded in 1834 from thieves' slang cross (or on the cross) to refer to something dishonest, a play on straight/square: a crook going back on his partners would therefore be crossing the crossers, or double-crossing. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is double-cross, spelled D-O-U-B-L-E---C-R-O-S-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To betray or go back on; to deceive someone after having gained their trust and led them to believe that they were being aided.
- 2To cross twice in hybridization, as (A × B) × (C × D); for example, in commercial hybrid seed corn, A through D are classically inbreds, and their grandoffspring is the seed for sale.
Etymology
First recorded in 1834 from thieves' slang cross (or on the cross) to refer to something dishonest, a play on straight/square: a crook going back on his partners would therefore be crossing the crossers, or double-crossing.
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: