Grand Cross is the highest grade in many orders of knighthood. Sometimes the holders of the highest grade are referred to "commanders grand cross", "knights grand cross" or just "grand crosses"; in other cases the actual insignia itself is called "the grand cross".
Alternatively, in some other orders, the highest grade may be called the "grand cordon", "grand collar" etc. In those cases the rank of grand cross may come after another rank (e.g. the Portuguese Order of Saint James of the Sword).
Read more about Grand Cross: Denomination "Grand Cordons"
Famous quotes containing the words grand and/or cross:
“We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch.... I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“In Russia there is an emigration of intelligence: émigrés cross the frontier in order to read and to write good books. But in doing so they contribute to making their fatherland, abandoned by spirit, into the gaping jaws of Asia that would like to swallow our little Europe.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)