what does it mean?" "It is a dreadful game of cross-purposes.

We had a talk of some length, wholly at cross-purposes.

The crazed Earl of Gloucester is not an ill-conceived character, and may have supplied a hint to Shakespeare; and the cross-purposes, stratagems, and deceptions, of which it is full, remind us of our great dramatist's own "Comedy of Errors," with which, however, it has nothing in common.

But the wrinkles of some old people are characterless; running in all directions, appearing as though a finely-woven cloth had left its impress upon the face, revealing a life aimless and idle, or distracted by a thousand cross-purposes and weaknesses.

Della and Jim have been said to illustrate the "story of cross-purposes."

V. be disorderly &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes.

Adv. irregularly &c adj.; by fits, by fits and snatches, by fits and starts; pellmell; higgledy-piggledy; helter-skelter, harum-scarum; in a ferment; at sixes and sevens, at cross-purposes; upside down &c 218.

Misinterpretation N. misinterpretation, misapprehension, misunderstanding, misacceptation^, misconstruction, misapplication; catachresis^; eisegesis^; cross-reading, cross-purposes; mistake &c 495. misrepresentation, perversion, exaggeration &c 549; false coloring, false construction; abuse of terms; parody, travesty; falsification &c (lying) 544.

A game at cross-purposes ensued; exclamations and explanations, and denials and apologies filled up the time which was to have made Master Horner so blest.

He came into my car and began to explain how the cross-purposes of the American and Japanese forces were producing a state of uncertainty and disorder as bad, if not worse, than existed under the Bolshevik régime.

I would gladly know in particular, what Notion you have of Hot-Cockles; as also whether you think that Questions and Commands, Mottoes, Similes, and Cross-Purposes have not more Mirth and Wit in them, than those publick Diversions which are grown so very fashionable among us.

He blocks out all possibility of good, cancels the hope, or even the wish for it as a weakness; check-mates Tityrus and Virgil at the game of pastoral cross-purposes, disables all his adversary's white pieces, and leaves none but black ones on the board.

It is a choice of evils, after all, this favourite game of cross-purposes for two.

But it is a game at cross-purposes all through this dangerous pastime; and perhaps its very contretemps are what make it so interesting to the players, so amusing to the lookers-on.

It involved you in no such labyrinths of farfetched absurdities and exasperating cross-purposes as Graham's did.

" "Monsieur, how idle are these cross-purposes!"

Trippet We are talking at cross-purposes.

A man who is conscious of jarring, who finds himself a little at cross-purposes with the woman he loves, and yet knows that the jarring is merely superficial and the love profound, may easily feel that to ask and offer once more the supreme expression of that love is the best way to transcend the temporary lack of sympathy and restore love to its right place and true proportion.

She would not be displeasedon the contrary, she would like his advice; it might even be that before now she had wished to ask for it, but had not liked to do soso completely did these two play at cross-purposes and misunderstand each other.

"Some of my best friends are Northerners, wearing that uniform, but, as it chances, we have met in war, playing at cross-purposes.

Why?" "Miss Hardy," I said soberly, "what use is there for us to play at cross-purposes?

To be sure we were working at cross-purposes, and you outwitted me, but later you squared all that by saving me from capture.

I would gladly know in particular, what Notion you have of Hot-Cockles; as also whether you think that Questions and Commands, Mottoes, Similes, and Cross-Purposes have not more Mirth and Wit in them, than those publick Diversions which are grown so very fashionable among us.

Of this nature is the agreeable Pastime in Country-Halls of Cross-purposes, Questions and Commands, and the like.

It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.