Crosscut

A crosscut cuts across a board's wood grain, perpendicular or close to it -- shortening a board's length, as opposed to a rip cut, which runs with the grain and changes width. Crosscuts generally produce a rougher surface than a rip cut in the same material, since the blade is severing wood fibers straight across rather than slicing between them, which is why a dedicated crosscut blade geometry (more, smaller teeth, often alternating bevel angles) cuts noticeably cleaner across the grain than a rip-optimized blade does.

Crosscuts are also generally the lower-kickback-risk cut of the two on a table saw, since the shorter offcut has less tendency to bind between the blade and fence the way a long rip cut's waste piece can.