noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An archbishop's cross. obsolete
2. 2
   An early instrument, consisting of a wooden rod with a sliding crosspiece, used for measuring the altitude of a star or for surveying. historical

   "The cross-staff is a very simple instrument, a calibrated shaft along which a bar slides."

Synonyms

All synonyms

batoncanecrookcrosiercrosscrutch

Example

More examples

"The cross-staff is a very simple instrument, a calibrated shaft along which a bar slides."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.