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• cross reference
  cross reference

  noun

  a reference from one part of a book, index, or the like, to related material, as a word or illustration, in another part.
• cross-reference
  cross-reference

  verb (used with or without object)

  to provide with cross references.

cross reference

¹ American  

noun

1. a reference from one part of a book, index, or the like, to related material, as a word or illustration, in another part.

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cross-reference ² American  

[kraws-ref-er-uhns, -ref-ruhns, kros-] / ˈkrɔsˈrɛf ər əns, -ˈrɛf rəns, ˈkrɒs- /

verb (used with or without object)

• cross-references,
  present (3rd person singular)
• cross-referenced,
  past participle,  past
• cross-referencing
  present participle

1. to provide with cross references.

   The new encyclopedia is completely cross-referenced.

2. cross-refer.

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cross-reference British  

noun

1. a reference within a text to another part of the text

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verb

1. to cross-refer

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

• cross-referencing
  present
• cross-referenced
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• cross-reference
  simple
• cross-references
  simple
• have cross-referenced
  perfect
• has cross-referenced
  perfect
• am cross-referencing
  progressive
• are cross-referencing
  progressive
• is cross-referencing
  progressive
• have been cross-referencing
  perfect progressive
• has been cross-referencing
  perfect progressive

Past

• cross-referenced
  simple
• had cross-referenced
  perfect
• was cross-referencing
  progressive
• were cross-referencing
  progressive
• had been cross-referencing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will cross-reference
  simple
• will have cross-referenced
  perfect
• will be cross-referencing
  progressive
• will have been cross-referencing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of cross reference¹

First recorded in 1825–35

Origin of cross-reference²

First recorded in 1900–05

Explanation

When a book mentions something from a different part of the same book, that's a cross-reference. In a textbook, a cross-reference might look like this: "See page 123." Cross-reference, "a reference in a book to another part of it," was coined in the 19th century. It's a way to add more information without going into wordy detail, similar to using a footnote or endnote in academic writing. If you look up "Amelia Earhart" in an index at the back of a book, you might see cross-references such as "See also: Earhart, Amelia" and "See also: aviators."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cross reference cross-reference cross-references cross-referenced cross-referencing

The Mayo Clinic provides some symptoms of BPD, which you can cross reference with your experience of your mother-in-law.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 29, 2026

JXN Water, the corporation Henifin formed to manage water infrastructure projects, will cross reference the Entergy customer records with city records to see what homes might be using water without a utility account.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 22, 2023

We can then cross reference this with satellite and Google Street View imagery.

From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2023

These people have different agendas and different biases, and you cross reference those lies.

From Salon ● Feb. 29, 2020

The only possible cross reference that might indicate it is in Rom. xvi, 20: "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly."

From From Bondage to Liberty in Religion A Spiritual Autobiography by George T. Ashley

If you want to dig deeper, cross-reference location details using Google Street View.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026

The cases don’t cross-reference one another, as often happens when the court decides two similar cases in the same term.

From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026

She begins to cross-reference family lore with a stunning trove of mail in original packaging, baptismal records from remote towns, court filings and Freedom of Information requests.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026

But Malloy’s attempt to cross-reference the stand-alone 30-minute stories with psychological and literal echoes palls.

From New York Times ● May 20, 2024

He had at least two hours before the Master Librarian woke from his fitful sleep and came padding among the bookshelves to check a cross-reference, a footnote, a scribble in the margins.

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

The 16-year-old this year built an app that cross-references noise picked up from a microphone nearby his house against an FAA registry and the flight-tracking platform FlightRadar24.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

Since then, AFP has automated area calculations of the geographic files supplied by ISW and cross-references them with the size of Ukrainian regions.

From Barron's ● Feb. 24, 2026

The 23-year-old's research cross-references data from adverts, like phone numbers or addresses, to link the same sellers to multiple accounts.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2021

Like Faith Ringgold, who began fusions of quilting and painting in the 1980s, Biggers cross-references the two.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2021

I checked the Talmudic cross-references for parallel texts and memorized whatever differences I found.

From "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok

For the report, the UN agency cross-referenced data showing where the roughly 2.4 billion children on the planet live with the geographic distribution of the eight most common climate impacts.

From Barron's ● Jun. 16, 2026

He cross-referenced books, a catalog from the 1920s, and photos on the British Museum’s website, and became convinced that some of the items he’d seen on eBay were part of the British Museum’s collection.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026

When another spate of fires sprang up around a 1989 arson sleuth conference near Monterey, Casey cross-referenced a list of attendees with the first list.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2025

The BBC cross-referenced the companies’ spill data from these overflow points with local Met Office rainfall data.

From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2024

It appeared as a jumble of cascading windows floating in front of me, displaying text, maps, photos, and audio and video files, all indexed, cross-referenced, and pulsing with life.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

Using the same cross-referencing technique for previous reports, it is possible to track how the valuation multiples for the holdings have changed over time.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026

In interviews the report authors say this led them to be extra careful when it came to cross-referencing and fact-checking evidence they included.

From BBC ● May 12, 2026

I studied the pages like scripture — cross-referencing crust ratios, comparing jam methods, building a menu as though I were prepping for an exam.

From Salon ● Oct. 14, 2025

These powerful applications provide a virtual fire hose of real-time information, including location and address history, cross-referencing usernames, and fingerprinting a user based on writing style.

From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2025

I rearrange a few pill bottles, making sure one more time that everything is in the same chronological order as what I programmed into the app after cross-referencing his Donkey Kong-covered regimen.

From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott