noughts and crosses
noun
Simple meaning
A game in which two players alternately put crosses and circles in one of the compartments of a square grid of nine spaces.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nawtsuhndkrawsizSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnɔtsəndkɹɔsɪz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
UKIrelandCommonwealthgames
A game in which two players alternately put crosses and circles in one of the compartments of a square grid of nine spaces; the object is to get a row of three crosses or three circles before the opponent does
UKIrelandCommonwealthgames
A two-player game played on a three-by-three grid, in which players take it in turns to place their respective symbol (either a nought or a cross) in a cell of the grid, the objective being to form a row, column or diagonal of three of one's own symbol.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A game in which two players alternately put crosses and circles in one of the compartments of a square grid of nine spaces; the object is to get a row of three crosses or three circles before the opponent does
Used this way, noughts and crosses is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.