cross-stayed

Updated: July 1, 2026

All at once I almost tripped over a massive iron bar; others, a rusty network of them, grew into being above and around me, like the arms of a ghostly polyp. 'What infernal spider's web is this? I thought, and stumbled clear. I had strayed into the base of a gigantic tripod, its gaunt legs stayed and cross-stayed, its apex lost in fog; the beacon, I remembered.

Erskine Childers - The Riddle of the Sands