iron cross

iron cross (plural iron crosses)

1. (gymnastics) A position on the rings where the gymnast holds the rings straight out on either side of the body.
2. (sports, moguls freestyle skiing) an acrobatic maneuver where the skier remains upright, but the lower leg bends back at the knee 90 degrees, and the ankles twist 45 degrees, so that the back of the skis form a right-angle cross
3. (ice hockey) A defensive strategy in which the two defencemen, a forward and the goaltender align themselves in a diamond shape so that imaginary lines drawn through the two defencemen and through the forward and goaltender form the shape of a cross.
4. A house plant, Oxalis tetraphylla.
5. Alternative letter-case form of Iron Cross (“a cross pattée used as a German military decoration”).
   • 2014, Richard Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945, Penguin, →ISBN:

     There were strong demands that the dead in bombing raids should be marked in the newspapers with an iron cross, like the military dead. The Propaganda Ministry approved of the idea in December 1941, but it was overturned by Hitler ...

• (gymnastics): crucifix
• (Oxalis tetraphylla): lucky clover, four-leaf sorrel, four-leaved pink-sorrel

• (freestyle moguls skiing): twister, spread, daffy, cossack, JLB