1 a picture of what the inside of sth would look like if you cut through it 剖面（图）；横切面（图）: a cross section of the human brain 人脑的横切面图 ☞picture at flower 见flower插图

2 a number of people, etc that come from the different parts of a group, and so can be considered to represent the whole group 典型；代表: The families we studied were chosen to represent a cross section of society. 我们研究的家庭都是经过挑选的，在社会上具有代表性。 ➔ˌcross-ˈsectional adj