Cross-bencher
//ˌkɹɒsˈbɛnt͡ʃə// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A member of the British House of Lords or the Senate of Canada or Australia who sits on a cross-bench, or who proclaims independence or political neutrality.
"Putting the hereditary nobility to one side, the life peers, and especially the cross-benchers, carry on an older, less narrowly professional tradition of distinguished service: rule by the ‘great and the good’, if not necessarily the best and brightest."
Example
More examples"Putting the hereditary nobility to one side, the life peers, and especially the cross-benchers, carry on an older, less narrowly professional tradition of distinguished service: rule by the ‘great and the good’, if not necessarily the best and brightest."
Etymology
From cross-bench + -er.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.