cross-functional

Cross-functional describes a team made up of people from different departments (engineering, design, marketing). Standard workplace vocabulary. Not concerning, just job jargon. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in. Most slang of this kind moves through TikTok and group chats, so seeing it in your child's vocabulary just means they are plugged into normal teen internet culture.

Cross-functional is a business term meaning involving multiple departments or disciplines, especially in team composition. Use in business and project-management writing. Formal equivalent: "interdisciplinary," "multidisciplinary." Common non-native mistake: hyphenation inconsistency. Use "cross-functional" (hyphenated) consistently as an adjective. Pair freely with "team," "collaboration," "initiative." Read or listen to the word in context several times before trying it yourself; the right register is harder to learn than the dictionary meaning.