# σταυρός/stauros This word is a type of thing or idea. It is a noun. * This word means cross. * A cross was an upright wooden post stuck into the ground with a horizontal wooden beam attached to it near the top. During the time of the Roman Empire, the Roman government executed criminals by tying or nailing them to a cross and leaving them there to die. * Sometimes this word is used to talk about Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross. * Sometimes this word is used to talk about something that is in some way like a cross.