Cross

== Marks and graphemes ==
{{further|X mark}}

The [[cross mark]] is used to mark a position, or as a [[check mark]], but also to mark [[:wikt:deletion|deletion]].
Derived from Greek [[Chi (letter)|Chi]] are the [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] letter [[X]], Cyrillic [[Kha (Cyrillic)|Kha]] and possibly runic [[Gyfu]].

[[Egyptian hieroglyphs]] involving cross shapes include  ''[[ankh]]'' "life",  ''[[Cross-ndj (hieroglyph)|ndj]]'' "protect" and ''[[Nefer|nfr]]'' "good; pleasant, beautiful".

[[Sumerian cuneiform]] had a simple cross-shaped character, consisting of a horizontal and a vertical wedge ([[:wikt:𒈦|𒈦]]), read as ''maš'' "tax, yield, interest"; the superposition of two diagonal wedges results in a decussate cross ([[:wikt:𒉽|𒉽]]), read as ''pap'' "first, pre-eminent" (the superposition of these two types of crosses results in the eight-pointed star used as the sign for "sky" or "deity" ([[:wikt:𒀭|𒀭]]), [[DINGIR]]). The cuneiform script has other, more complex, cruciform characters, consisting of an arrangement of boxes or the fourfold arrangement of other characters, including the [[archaic cuneiform]] characters [[Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen|LAK]]-210, LAK-276, LAK-278, LAK-617 and the classical sign EZEN (𒂡).<ref>An example of a cruciform arrangement of a character that is itself cruciform is the ligature "EZEN x KASKAL squared", encoded by [[Unicode cuneiform|Unicode]] at U+120AD (𒂭).</ref>

Phoenician ''tāw'' is still cross-shaped in [[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet]] and in some [[Old Italic scripts]] ([[Raetic]] and [[Lepontic]]), and its descendant [[T]] becomes again cross-shaped in the Latin [[Lower case|minuscule]] [[t]]. The [[Plus and minus signs|plus sign]] (+) is derived from Latin [[t]] via a simplification of a ligature for ''et'' "and" (introduced by [[Johannes Widmann]] in the late 15th century).

The letter [[Aleph]] is cross-shaped in [[Aramaic script|Aramaic]] and [[paleo-Hebrew]].

[[Egyptian hieroglyph]]s with cross-shapes include [[Gardiner's sign list|Gardiner]] [[List of hieroglyphs/Z|Z9 &ndash; Z11]] ("crossed sticks", "crossed planks").

Other, unrelated cross-shaped letters include [[Brahmi]] ''ka'' (predecessor of the [[Devanagari]] letter क) and [[Old Turkic script|Old Turkic (Orkhon)]] ''d²'' and [[Old Hungarian alphabet|Old Hungarian]] ''b'', and [[Katakana]] ナ ''[[Na (kana)|na]]'' and メ''[[Me (kana)|me]]''.

The [[multiplication sign]] (×), often attributed to [[William Oughtred]] (who first used it in an appendix to the 1618 edition of John Napier's ''Descriptio'') apparently had been in occasional use since the mid 16th century.<ref>Florian Cajori, ''A History of Mathematical Notations''. Dover Books on Mathematics (1929), [https://books.google.com/books?id=_byqAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA251  251f.]</ref>

Other typographical symbols resembling crosses include the [[dagger (mark)|dagger]] or ''obelus'' (†), the [[Chinese numerals|Chinese]] ([[wikt:十|十]], [[Radical 24|Kangxi radical 24]]) and [[Roman numerals|Roman]] (X ten).

[[Unicode]] has a variety of cross symbols in the "[[Dingbat]]" block (U+2700–U+27BF):

:✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✙ ✚ ✛ ✜ ✝ ✞ ✟ ✠ ✢ ✣ ✤ ✥

The [[Miscellaneous Symbols]] block (U+2626 to U+262F) adds three specific [[Christian cross variants]], viz. the [[Patriarchal cross]] (☦), [[Cross of Lorraine]] (☨) and [[Cross potent]] (☩, mistakenly labeled a "[[Cross of Jerusalem]]").