Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A usually unintentionally conflicting or contrary purpose.
- idiom. at cross-purposes Having or acting under a misunderstanding of each other's purposes: We're working at cross-purposes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An opposing or counter purpose; a conflicting intention or plan; a plan or course of action running counter to the plan or course of action purposed by another: most frequently in the plural: as, they are pursuing cross-purposes.
- n. plural A sort of conversational game; a game of words or phrases used at random.
Wiktionary
- n. A contrary or conflicting purpose or understanding, especially an unintentional or misconceived one.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. See Cross-purpose, in the Vocabulary.
- n. A counter or opposing purpose; a contrary aim; hence, that which is inconsistent or contradictory.
- n. A conversational game, in which questions and answers are made so as to involve ludicrous combinations of ideas.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a contrary aim
Examples
“These cross-purpose directives underscore the corn-ethanol conundrum.”
Robert Howarth: Record Corn Crop Spells More Trouble for Gulf of Mexico Fisheries
“The brother is driven to despair — he bites his nails, winks, coughs, makes signs, which she always takes up at cross-purpose. —”
“Most of them are former US military, and the idea they would operate at cross-purpose to the active military is laughable.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Military Privatization and the Danger of Coups:
“Insect societies as divided organisms: The complexities of purpose and cross-purpose”
“Both clearly see the strange, romantic threads restraining them within coercive limits, interdicting helpful alliances while leading all at divergent angles of cross-purpose.”
Oswald Langdon or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898
“The pretty vision greeted him with the air of a privileged child of the house, interrupting only for an instant the babel of cross-purpose explanation about carriages and trains.”
“On the contrary, there is a vast shadow of melancholy, a painful sadness, doubt and cross-purpose, boldness at one moment and timidity at the next, a longing for solitude.”
“Antipholus is also now reassured about his gold, and the earlier cross-purpose seems only”
“There is no confusion or cross-purpose in the hive.”
“The apparent cross-purpose of the despatches is explained by the difficulty of communication between headquarters and the Sixth Corps.”
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