line of thought

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English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Noun[edit]

line of thought (plural lines of thought)

  1. (figuratively) A specific way of thinking about a particular topic, concept, or problem.
    • 2013, E. J. Lowe, Forms of Thought: A Study in Philosophical Logic, Cambridge University Press, page 31:
      In the present chapter, I want to develop this line of thought in greater detail and at the same time clear up some difficulties that a number of my critics have claimed to find in my account of these matters.
    • 2009, Robert J. Richards, “Darwin's place in the history of thought: A reevaluation”, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America[1], volume 106:
      Let me approach this line of thought a bit indirectly.
    • 2001, Clifford Geertz, “School Building: A Retrospective Preface”, in Joan Wallach Scott, Debra Keates, editors, Schools of Thought: Twenty-five Years of Interpretive Social Science, page 1:
      Similarly, to take twenty-five years of free-form, cross-cutting social, political, economic, and historical writing growing out of work at a single, unstandard, American institution and isolate it as an "era" in such writing — a stage, a phase, a line of thought — is to pursue an agenda, take a position, state a case.
  2. (figuratively) Way of thinking.

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