crossstaff

English

Noun

crossstaff (plural crossstaffs)

1. (rare) Alternative form of cross-staff
   • 1980, Per Sörbom, Tekniska museet (Stockholm, Sweden), Transport Technology and Social Change: Symposium 1979, pages 124 and 133:

     Yet even with these corrections, Harriot was not satisfied with the crossstaff as currently made. [...] To take a precise navigational sighting using a crossstaff it is necessary to look two ways at once—at the sun, for instance, and at the horizon. [...] The National Maritime Museum at Greenwich has 1 crossstaff, 15 backstaffs, and 98 octants; the Peabody Museum at Salem, Massachusetts has 2 crossstaffs, 11 backstaffs, and 82 octants.

   • 2001, Meredith P. Lillich, Studies in Medieval Stained Glass and Monasticism, pages 253 and 443:

     Several archbishops holding such crossstaffs appear in the Reims nave.
     […]
     In one [scene] an enthroned archbishop with crossstaff and moneybags presented a gold piece, as down payment, to architects and master mascons dressed in medieval chaperons.