Other forms: cross-examined, cross-examining, cross-examines
To cross-examine is to question the other side's witness to test their story. Cross-examine a witness.
The rule of thumb is never to ask a question you do not already know the answer to. To cross-examine well is to get short answers, since a long one is the witness talking.
1verbcross-examineTo question the other side's witness to test their story.
“She was cross-examined for two full days.”
cross-examine is a questioning.
Middle English
cross
English
cross
English, today
cross-examine
From cross- + examine. cross comes from Middle English cross. From Middle English cross, cros, from Old English cros (“rood, cross”), from Old Norse kross, from Old Irish cros, from Latin crux (crucī). In this sense displaced native Middle English rode, from Old English rōd (“cross”); see rood. a doublet of crouch and crux. Compare Welsh croes, Irish crois. The sense of "two intersecting lines drawn or cut on a surface; two lines intersecting at right angles" without regard to religious signification develops from the late 14th century.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA