crosstree

From cross +‎ tree.

crosstree (plural crosstrees)

1. (nautical) A light timber or metal spreader fixed athwartships part way up a mast to spread the shrouds from higher up
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 35”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Your most usual point of perch is the head of the t’ gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t’ gallant crosstrees.

• rectoress, retrocess, secretors