What is the difference between cross-compile and transpile? (Honest question, no sarcasm)
Actually, there is no such thing as a "transpiler". There are only compilers which are programs which translate from one regular language A into another regular language B. It doesn't matter whether B is a high-level language or low-level machine code.
In any event, is it so bad to have another word for source-to-source compilation? What is it that angers you about it?
If you compile C to Assembler then you compile from one code (C) to another code (Asm, or machine code which is the compact form of Asm). What's the difference to a "transpiler"?
Wikipedia states that the difference is just the (almost) equal level of abstraction. I would call such a thing a high-level source-to-source compiler. The word "transpiler" is uncertain and barely known, hence the people here who ask what a transpiler is.
Cross-compilation is another thing since it means compiling on one platform for another platform. In all three cases we deal with compilers from one regular language A into another regular language B.
cross-compile: convert from one language to another that will be executed on another platform (e.g. compiling something on a linux box to be ran on a windows machine)
transpile: convert from one (typically high level) source language to another (high level) source language