idiom · neutral
talk at cross purposes
UK/tɔːk æt krɒs ˈpɜːpəsɪz/US/tɔːk æt krɔs ˈpɝpəˌsɪz/talk·at·CROSS·PUR·po·ses
to speak about different things and so fail to understand each other
Examples
“We kept talking at cross purposes; I thought we were discussing budgets, he was talking about staffing.”
“In the debate both sides were talking at cross purposes, so nothing was resolved.”
“Make sure you clarify the question — otherwise you'll risk talking at cross purposes.”
Band 8 sentence
“We were talking at cross purposes in the meeting — once we defined terms, the discussion improved markedly.”
Collocations
- talk at cross purposes with
- keep talking at cross purposes
Word family
Common mistakes
talk cross purposes→talk at cross purposes
we were talking in different things→we were talking at cross purposes
Say it for a higher band
5misunderstand each other→6talk past each other→7+talk at cross purposes
Synonyms
miscommunicate
Easily confused
talk past each other
“They were clearly talking past each other during the negotiations.”
Related words
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