A crux can be of various shapes: from a single beam used for impaling or suspending ( crux simplex) to the various composite kinds of cross ( crux compacta) made from more beams than one. The field of etymology is of no help in any effort to trace a supposed original meaning of crux. In the Roman world, furca replaced crux as the name of some cross-like instruments for lethal and temporary punishment, ranging from a forked cross to a gibbet or gallows. The derived verb cruciāre means 'to put to death on the cross' or, more frequently, 'to put to the rack, to torture, torment', especially in reference to mental troubles. Latin crux referred to the gibbet where criminals were executed, a stake or pole, with or without transom, on which the condemned were impaled or hanged, but more particularly a cross or the pole of a carriage.

This word, by conflation with Latin crux, gave rise to Old French crocier (modern French crosse), the term for a shepherd's crook, adopted in English as crosier. The Latin word was influenced by popular etymology by a native Germanic word reconstructed as * krukjo (English crook, Old English crycce, Old Norse krokr, Old High German krucka).

1200, first in the sense 'to make the sign of the cross' the generic meaning 'to intersect' develops in the 15th century. The English verb to cross arises from the noun c. The word's history is complicated it appears to have entered English from Old Irish, possibly via Old Norse, ultimately from the Latin crux (or its accusative crucem and its genitive crucis), 'stake, cross'. The word cross is recorded in 11th-century Old English as cros, exclusively for the instrument of Christ's crucifixion, replacing the native Old English word rood. It often appeared in conjunction with the female-genital circle or oval, to signify the sacred marriage, as in Egyptian amulet Nefer with male cross and female orb, considered as an amulet of blessedness, a charm of sexual harmony. The effigy of a man hanging on a cross was set up in the fields to protect the crops.

Before then, it was a pagan religious symbol throughout Europe and western Asia. The cross has been widely recognized as a symbol of Christianity from an early period. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a saltire in heraldic terminology. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A Greek cross (all arms of equal length) above a saltire, a cross whose limbs are slantedĪ cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other.

Cross & Crown by Abigail Roux