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Double cross is a phrase meaning to betray.

phrase originates from the use of the word cross in the sense of foul play
Foul Play

Foul Play is a 1978 in film film by Colin Higgins starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. They are supported by Burgess Meredith, Brian Dennehy, Billy Barty and Dudley Moore in one of his first American feature film appearances....
; deliberate collusion to lose a contest of some kind.

It has also been suggested that the term was inspired by the practice of 18th-century British thief taker and criminal Jonathan Wild
Jonathan Wild

Jonathan Wild was perhaps the most famous crime of London — and possibly Great Britain — during the 18th century, both because of his own actions and the uses novelists, playwrights, and political satire made of them....
, who kept a ledger of his transactions and is said to have placed two crosses by the names of persons who had cheated him in some way.






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Double cross is a phrase meaning to betray.

Origin

The phrase originates from the use of the word cross in the sense of foul play
Foul Play

Foul Play is a 1978 in film film by Colin Higgins starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. They are supported by Burgess Meredith, Brian Dennehy, Billy Barty and Dudley Moore in one of his first American feature film appearances....
; deliberate collusion to lose a contest of some kind.

It has also been suggested that the term was inspired by the practice of 18th-century British thief taker and criminal Jonathan Wild
Jonathan Wild

Jonathan Wild was perhaps the most famous crime of London — and possibly Great Britain — during the 18th century, both because of his own actions and the uses novelists, playwrights, and political satire made of them....
, who kept a ledger of his transactions and is said to have placed two crosses by the names of persons who had cheated him in some way. This folk etymology is almost certainly incorrect, but there is documentary evidence that the term did exist in the 19th century.

More recently, the phrase was used to refer to either of two possible situations:
  1. A competitor participating in the fix who has agreed to throw their game instead competes as usual, against the original intention of their collaborators - one "cross" against another.
  2. Two opposing parties are approached, urging them to throw the game and back the other. Both parties lose out, and the perpetrators benefit by backing a third, winning party.


This use has passed into common parlance, so that, for example, in World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, British
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
 Military Intelligence used the Double Cross System
Double Cross System

The Double Cross System or XX System, was a World War II anti-espionage and deception operation of the United Kingdom military intelligence arm, MI5....
 to release captured Nazis
Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
 back to Germany bearing false information.

(To 'cross swords' was a term for a duel where two drawn swords made an X. So to cross someone was to take a sparring position against them.)

In Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr. Order of the British Empire , better known as Charlie Chaplin, was an Academy Award-winning England comedy film actor and filmmaker....
's film The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator is a comedy film Film director by and starring Charlie Chaplin. First released in October 1940 in film, it was Chaplin's first true talking picture, and more importantly was the only major film of its period to bitterly satirise Nazism and Adolf Hitler, culminating in an overt political plea to defy fascism....
, the "double cross" is a surrogate for the Nazi swastika of the fictional dictatorship "Tomainia" in an unflattering parody of the Third Reich, its ideology
National Socialism

National Socialism typically refers to Nazism, which was the ideology of the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler.National Socialism typically promotes uniting the working class of a specific ethnic, national, or racial group into a proletarian nation while socialism the industry, providing an extensive welfare state and opposing capitalism, com...
 and its leadership.

See also

  • cross
    Cross

    A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run diagonally, the design is technically termed a saltire....
  • Double Cross System
    Double Cross System

    The Double Cross System or XX System, was a World War II anti-espionage and deception operation of the United Kingdom military intelligence arm, MI5....
     - British WWII counter-intelligence deceptions