at cross purposes

Idioms  

1. With aims or goals that conflict or interfere with one another, as in I'm afraid the two departments are working at cross purposes. This idiom, first recorded in 1688, may have begun as a 17th-century parlor game called “cross-purposes,” in which a series of subjects (or questions) were divided from their explanations (or answers) and distributed around the room. Players then created absurdities by combining a subject taken from one person with an explanation taken from another.

---

Example Sentences

Her comedy is dialectical, it rides on characters talking at cross purposes, inhabiting separate clashing realities.

From Los Angeles Times • May 14, 2026

The military isn’t the only institution to find itself at cross purposes with young Americans.

From Washington Times • Dec. 26, 2023

"If we don't have that clarity of purpose, then we will permit our policies to work at cross purposes - and that is absolutely one thing at play right now," he said.

From BBC • Aug. 24, 2023

The official said the dialogue on subsidies would be aimed at making sure the United States and Europe are not working at cross purposes.

From Reuters • Mar. 10, 2023

Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross purposes.

From "1984" by George Orwell

Related Words

• anti
• antithetical
• averse
• disputed
• hostile
• inimical
• opposing