"cross someone's T" meaning in English

See cross someone's T in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: crosses someone's T [present, singular, third-person], crossing someone's T [participle, present], crossed someone's T [participle, past], crossed someone's T [past]
Etymology: From the shape formed by the opposing battle lines, which resembles a capital letter T. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} cross someone's T (third-person singular simple present crosses someone's T, present participle crossing someone's T, simple past and past participle crossed someone's T)
  1. (military, nautical) To sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return. Wikipedia link: crossing the T Categories (topical): Military, Nautical, War

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for cross someone's T meaning in English (3.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the shape formed by the opposing battle lines, which resembles a capital letter T.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "crosses someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "crossing someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "crossed someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "crossed someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "cross someone's T (third-person singular simple present crosses someone's T, present participle crossing someone's T, simple past and past participle crossed someone's T)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
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        {
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          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Military",
          "orig": "en:Military",
          "parents": [
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Nautical",
          "orig": "en:Nautical",
          "parents": [
            "Transport",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "War",
          "orig": "en:War",
          "parents": [
            "Conflict",
            "Military",
            "Violence",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Society",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2019 September 18, Drachinifel, 12:24 from the start, in Battle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse..., archived from the original on 2022-12-04",
          "text": "No sooner has the fleet settled onto this course than a small group of Japanese cruisers and actual, real, live, all-singing, all-dancing, all-features-included, protected-by-the-Emperor torpedo boats begin to move to cross the T of the Russian fleet. Worried about a torpedo attack on his lead battleships and determined to sweep this small formation aside, Rozhestvensky orders his main ships into a line abreast, a far-more-potent display of force that allows every forward-pointing gun on his capital ships to bear at the same time.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return."
      ],
      "id": "en-cross_someone's_T-en-verb-1uJxhAwM",
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
        ],
        [
          "nautical",
          "nautical"
        ],
        [
          "sail",
          "sail"
        ],
        [
          "battle line",
          "battle line"
        ],
        [
          "across",
          "across"
        ],
        [
          "front",
          "front"
        ],
        [
          "enemy",
          "enemy"
        ],
        [
          "firepower",
          "firepower"
        ],
        [
          "limit",
          "limit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(military, nautical) To sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "military",
        "nautical",
        "politics",
        "transport",
        "war"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "crossing the T"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "cross someone's T"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the shape formed by the opposing battle lines, which resembles a capital letter T.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "crosses someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "crossing someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "crossed someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "crossed someone's T",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "cross someone's T (third-person singular simple present crosses someone's T, present participle crossing someone's T, simple past and past participle crossed someone's T)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "en:Military",
        "en:Nautical",
        "en:War"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2019 September 18, Drachinifel, 12:24 from the start, in Battle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse..., archived from the original on 2022-12-04",
          "text": "No sooner has the fleet settled onto this course than a small group of Japanese cruisers and actual, real, live, all-singing, all-dancing, all-features-included, protected-by-the-Emperor torpedo boats begin to move to cross the T of the Russian fleet. Worried about a torpedo attack on his lead battleships and determined to sweep this small formation aside, Rozhestvensky orders his main ships into a line abreast, a far-more-potent display of force that allows every forward-pointing gun on his capital ships to bear at the same time.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
        ],
        [
          "nautical",
          "nautical"
        ],
        [
          "sail",
          "sail"
        ],
        [
          "battle line",
          "battle line"
        ],
        [
          "across",
          "across"
        ],
        [
          "front",
          "front"
        ],
        [
          "enemy",
          "enemy"
        ],
        [
          "firepower",
          "firepower"
        ],
        [
          "limit",
          "limit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(military, nautical) To sail one's battle line across the front of the enemy battle line, allowing one to bring one's full firepower to bear on the enemy battle line while limiting the firepower that the enemy can use in return."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "military",
        "nautical",
        "politics",
        "transport",
        "war"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "crossing the T"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "cross someone's T"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.