So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
2009, Jory Sherman, Sidewinder:
For their present position, he drew an inverted V. Then he drew a line and on either side he inscribed landmarks, ridges, passes. At the other end he drew a number of inverted Vs to represent the Arapaho village.
Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.
2007, Robert Newcomb, A March Into Darkness, page 29:
[…]he found preparing the hook far less fun than dangling the line in the water and waiting for a fish to come along. Finally succeeding, he beamed a smile up at his father, then lowered his line into the swift-moving Sippora.
2008, Joshua Plunkett, Jeanne K. Hanson, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Trees and Shrubs, page 164:
Use fabric or nursery grade webbing around stakes and trunk, loosely tying the line to the tree about 6 inches below the point where the tree bounces back in your hand when you grab the trunk.
1973, Final Environmental Statement for the Geothermal Leasing Program (US department of the interior):
There is the possible hazard of an oil spill in case the line breaks but normal pipeline maintenance and safety measures, etc., are designed to prevent large or long continued spillage.
1981 October, Popular Science, volume 219, number 4, page 113:
To the end of the metal fuel line (where it fits into the carb) you attach a four-foot length of flexible fuel line.
This description of the old front line, as it was when the Battle of the Somme began, may some day be of use.[…]It is hoped that this description of the line will be followed by an account of our people's share in the battle.
The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.
That which was measured by a line, such as a field or any piece of land set apart; hence, allotted place of abode.
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath / She studied the lines on my face / I must admit I felt a little uneasy / When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe / Tangled up in blue.
A band of brothers gathering round me, made, / Although unarmed, a steadfast front[…]now the line / Of war extended, to our rallying cry / As myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.
[T]he rest of the history of the Old Testament derives the succession of the line of David to the Captivity, of which line was to spring the restorer of the kingdom of God[…].
Nay if you read this line, remember not, / The hand that writ it.
A sentence of dialogue, especially [from the later 19thc.] in a play, movie, or the like.
He was perfecting his pickup lines for use at the bar.
"It is what it is" was one his more annoying lines.
2010, Alison Hodge, Actor training, page 138:
Anyone who has worked with Littlewood will wince at the memory of going over single lines time and time again, each actor in turn speaking the line until the valid intonation, phasing and emphasis emerged.
1835, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, Specimens of the table talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, page 45:
He is uncommonly powerful in his own line; but it is not the line of a first-rate man.
The official, statedposition (or set of positions) of an individual or group, particularly a political or religious faction. [from later 19thc.]
2019 September 10, Jonathan Guyer, The American Prospect[1], number Fall 2019:
Omar has challenged Elliott Abrams’s record in Latin America, taken a firm line against Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and advocated for—wait for it—the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine (even though the headlines have focused on her expressing support for the right to boycott as a tactic).
Remember, your answers must match the party line.
A set of products or services sold by a business, or by extension, the business itself. [from earlier 19thc.]
line of business, product line
How many buses does the line have?
The airline is in danger of bankruptcy.
(stock exchange) A number of shares taken by a jobber.
(historical) A tsarist-era Russian unit of measure, approximately equal to one tenth of an English inch, used especially when measuring the calibre of firearms.
1906, Reports of military observers to the armies in Manchuria, page 261:
The arm of the Russian infantry is the three-line rifle, model 1891 (caliber 0.299 inch)[…].
2013, The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia, →ISBN, page 561:
A “line” was a unit of measurement used in tsarist Russia and equal to about a tenth of an inch. The 3-line rifle, therefore, had a bore of three lines, or approximately .30 caliber.
1922, “Statement of James Turner, Representing Universal Button Fastening Co., Detriot, Mich.”, in Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, page 5337:
In case any of the committee do not understand what is meant by a rate per line, I may say that buttons, being very small, are not measured by the foot or inch, but by the line, a line being one-fortieth of an inch. For example, that is a 27-line button[…].
1898, Alfred Eugene Wiener, Practical calculation of dynamo-electric machines, page 47:
At the same time, however, for calculation in the metric system, one metre is taken as the unit for the length of the conductor, one metre per second as the unit velocity, and one line per square centimetre as the unit of field density.
1903, William Richard Kelsey, Continuous current dynamos and motors and their control, page 39:
The density will now be only one quarter of a line per square centimetre, and therefore a unit pole placed at a distance of 2 centimetres from a similar pole, will only be acted on with a force of one quarter of a dyne,[…].
1904, Silvanus Phillips Thompson, Dynamo-electric machinery: a manual for students of electrotechniques: Volume 1, Part 1, page 74:
The Paris Congress of 1900 adopted the name gauss as that of the unit of intensity of field, one gauss signifying one line per square centimetre. The same Congress also named one line as one maxwell, but everybody still uses the term line.
1909, Henry Metcalf Hobart, Electricity: a text book designed in particular for engineering, page 58:
A magnetic flux is said to have a density of one line per square centimeter when it exerts on a unit north pole a force of one dyne.
1861, George Chapman, Foil Practice, with a Review of the Art of Fencing, page 12:
Thus, for example, in the line of Quarte, the direct thrust is parried by dropping the point under the adversary's blade and circling upwards, throwing off the attack in the opposite line (that of Tierce), and upon the direct thrust in the line of Tierce, by a similar action throwing off the attack in the opposite line (that of Quarte).
"Let's have a line." He pulled a razor blade from his pocket and scooped out a couple of mounds. He laid out seven thick lines on a mirror. He rolled up a fifty-dollar note and snorted a line.
2004, Burl Barer, Broken Doll, page 64:
"Yes, we did. We both did a line, but maybe close to a half gram of crystal meth. I did a line and he did a way much bigger line."
2007, D. C. Fuller, Meth Monster: Crankin' Thru Life a Look Into the Abyss, page 474:
Snorting it was a much slower blast off and a longer less intense buzz, that was much easier to function on. A few minutes after you snort a line you can feel the niacin rush coming up your back and washing over your head,[…].
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
The mountains which have lined the road on the left here cross it and the road makes a very sharp ascent, going over them.
2009, Jon Fasman, The Unpossessed City:
Knee-high garden lamps lined the path; Jim was careful to stay in their pools. Assuming he was being watched, the last thing he wanted to do was give them any reason to chase after him in the dark.
(transitive) To mark with a line or lines, to cover with lines.
1897, Daniel Webster Davis, “De Linin’ ub de Hymns”, quoted in Jerma A. Jackson, “Exuberance or Restraint: Music and Religion after Reconstruction”, in Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN978-0-8078-2860-1, page 15:
De young folks say ’tain’t stylish to lin’ ’um no mo’; / Dat deys got edikashun, an’ dey wants us all to know / Dey like to hab dar singin’-books a-holin’ fore dar eyes, / An’ sing de hymns right straight along “to manshuns in de skies”.
‘[W]hy do you all sing hymns that way?’ / ‘Linin’?’ she asked. / ‘Is that what it is?’ / ‘Yeah, it’s called linin’. They’ve done it that way as long as I can remember.’ / Jem said it looked like they could save the collection money for a year and get some hymn-books. / Calpurnia laughed. ‘Wouldn’t do any good,’ she said. ‘They can’t read.’
1999, Janet Duitsman Cornelius, “‘Cords of Love’: Religious Cultures Intertwined, yet Separate”, in Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South, Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 10:
By the 1840s a typical hush-harbor meeting of African Americans had become “an amalgam of African initiation practices and camp meeting Christianity,” which included “bits of Christian doctrine and ritual” with a “focus on African initiation and ritual events.” […] A lined hymn or a “sperchul” provided the opening music. In “linin’,” also called “deaconin’,” an elder would sing two lines of a hymnbook song, perhaps one of Watts’s hymns or an older one, which would be repeated by the group of worshipers in “wailing cadences.”
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Even in an era when individuality in dress is a cult, his clothes were noticeable. He was wearing a hard hat of the low round kind favoured by hunting men, and with it a black duffle-coat lined with white.
The bird lines its nest with soft grass.
to line a cloak with silk or fur
to line a box with paper or tin
paintings lined the walls of the cavernous dining room
To reinforce (the back of a book) with glue and glued scrap material such as fabric or paper.
1891, English mechanics and the world of science, volume 52, page 306:
[…] such books are always close back—ie, the leather cover is always glued or pasted to the bare back of the book. After books have been lined the bands are put on if the style of binding admits of this operation.
1895, The British Printer, volume VIII, page 94:
Then again line the back, again bringing the paper a little further in than the second lining, and repeat the operation according to what you think the weight and size of the book demands in extra strength, […]
A bitch lined by a mangy dog is very liable to produce mangy puppies, and the progeny of a mangy bitch is certain to become affected some time or other.
1855, William Youatt, The Dog:
Pliny states that the inhabitants of India take pleasure in having their dog bitches lined by the wild tigers, and to facilitate this union, they are in the habit of tieing them when in heat out in the woods, so that the male tigers may visit them.
1868 September, The Country Gentleman's Magazine, page 292:
Bedlamite was a black dog, and although it may be safely asserted that he lined upwards of 100 bitches of all colours, red, white, and blue, all his produce were black.
Stretford End of Old Trafford in Manchester (1992). In soccer, the goal line is the boundary of the smaller rectangle that touches the goal as seen in the picture.
Assuming the yellow taxi is moving backwards, it is in the process of lining up with other taxis.
References
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing. (See the entry for “line”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
line in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
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