transitive verb

• Question (someone) in great detail; cross-examine.

  ‘it seemed ungrateful to cross-question him’

  More example sentences

  • ‘They cross-questioned him and then recross-questioned him to check on his consistency.’
  • ‘It also cross-questioned me, but ended up giving me the information I wanted.’
  • ‘Arguing for such a debate, he said he wanted the chance to cross-question him without notes.’
  • ‘Her endless cross-questioning every night for two months pushed him into a divorce.’
  • ‘Should they too be cross-questioned by new EU thought police about their fitness to work in companies committed under countless EU directives to celebrating diversity and promoting equality?’
  • ‘Stranger still was that this programme about religious sectarianism failed to cross-question religious organisations.’
  • ‘When cross-questioned in detail by members of the public about their attitudes towards the private finance intiative, for example, they had their answer ready: ‘Why do you have to be so nasty?’’
  • ‘Together with official histories, they provide a basis for cross-questioning the testimony in autobiographies and trial records.’
  • ‘The elderly man shook visibly under cross-questioning.’
  • ‘It does not amount to a licence to cross-question and monitor every single pregnant woman in the country.’
  • ‘Third, it cross-questions closely the link between nationalism, militarism and patriarchy in the specificity of women's inclusion to and exclusion from the military.’
  • ‘The biographer must always be doubted, cross-questioned, read between the lines.’
  • ‘Furthermore, he claims that wealthy young men with much leisure time on their hands follow him around as they enjoy hearing people cross-questioned.’
  • ‘But there is grit too, illustrated well in his persistent cross-questioning of Tony Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell during a lobby briefing.’
  • ‘Orders are given by courts - without cross-questioning or fair trials - to evict permanently land-less farm workers and their big families.’
  • ‘The cross-questioning ranged from his birth, family background, education, hobbies, language proficiency to, most disgracefully, whether he had defaulted on a mission assigned by his superiors.’
  • ‘The flavour of his cross-questioning comes across in the notes kept by Hargreaves: ‘It's bad to kill.’’
  • ‘But that does not mean that as Speaker I intend to submit myself to allegations and wholesale cross-questioning of my actions.’
  • ‘Only after some cross-questioning did I discover that the system would log me out after 15 minutes of inactivity.’
  • ‘Once he actually confronts her, his erotic drive is to break her down and force her to tell by persistent cross-questioning.’

  Synonyms

  interrogate, question, cross-question, quiz, catechize