LINE, n. [L. linea, linum; Gr. flax.]

1. In geometry, a quantity extended in length, without breadth or thickness; or a limit terminating a surface. – Encyc.
2. A slender string; small cord or rope. The angler uses a line and hook. The seaman uses a hand line, a hauling line, spilling lines, &c.
3. A thread, string or cord extended to direct any operation. We as by line upon the ocean go. – Dryden.
4. Lineament; a mark in the hand or face. He tipples palmistry, and dines / On all her fortune telling lines. – Cleaveland.
5. Delineation; sketch; as, the lines of a building. – Temple.
6. Contour; outline; exterior limit of a figure. Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line. – Pope.
7. In writing, printing, and engraving, the words and letters which stand on a level in one row, between one margin and another; as, a page of thirty lines.
8. In poetry, a verse, or the words which form a certain number of feet, according to the measure.
9. A short letter; a note. I received a line from my friend by the last mail.
10. A rank or row of soldiers, or the disposition of an army drawn up with an extended front; or the like disposition of a fleet prepared for engagement.
11. A trench or rampart; an extended work in fortification. Unite thy forces and attack their lines. – Dryden.
12. Method; disposition; as, line of order. – Shak.
13. Extension; limit; border. Eden stretched her line / From Auran eastward to the royal towers / Of great Seleucia. – Milton.
14. Equator; equinoctial circle. When the sun below the line descends. – Creech.
15. A series or succession of progeny or relations, descending from a common progenitor. We speak of the ascending or descending line; the line of descent; the male line; a line of kings.
16. The twelfth part of an inch.
17. A straight extended mark.
18. A straight or parallel direction. The houses must all stand in a line. Every new building must be set in a line with others on the same street.
19. Occupation; employment; department or course of business. We speak of men in the same line of business. – Washington.
20. Course; direction. What general line of conduct ought to be pursued. – Washington.
21. Lint or flax. [Seldom used.] – Spenser.
22. In heraldry, lines are the figures used in armories to divide the shield into different parts, and to compose different figures. – Encyc.
23. In Scripture, line signifies a cord for measuring; also, instruction, doctrine. Ps. xix. Is. xxviii. A right line, a straight or direct line; the shortest line that can be drawn between two points. Horizontal line, a line drawn parallel to the horizon. Equinoctial line, in geography, a great circle on the earth's surface, at 90 degrees distance from each pole, and bisecting the earth at that part. In astronomy, the circle which the sun seems to describe, in March and. September, when the days and nights are of equal length. Meridian line, an imaginary circle drawn through the two poles of the earth, and any part of its surface. A ship of the line, a ship of war large enough to have a place in the line of battle. All ships carrying seventy-four or more large guns, are ships of the line. Smaller ships may sometimes be so called.

1. To cover on the inside; as, a garment lined with linen, fur or silk; a box lined with paper or tin.
2. To put in the inside. What if I do line one of their hands? – Shak.
3. To place along by the side of any thing for guarding; as, to line a hedge with riflemen; to line works with soldiers.
4. To strengthen by additional works or men. Line and new repair your towns of war / With men of courage. – Shak.
5. To cover; to add a covering; as, to line a crutch. – Shak.
6. To strengthen with any thing added. Who lined himself with hope. – Shak.
7. To impregnate; applied to irrational animals. – Creech.

1. Flax; linen.
   
   
   [Obs.] "Garments made of line." Spenser.
2. To cover the inner surface of] as, to line a cloak with silk or fur; to line a box with paper or tin.
   
   

   The inside lined with rich carnation silk. W. Browne.

3. A linen thread or string; a slender, strong cord; also, a cord of any thickness; a rope; a hawser; as, a fishing line; a line for snaring birds; a clothesline; a towline.
   
   

   Who so layeth lines for to latch fowls. Piers Plowman.

4. To mark with a line or lines; to cover with lines; as, to line a copy book.
   
   

   He had a healthy color in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. Dickens.

5. The longer and finer fiber of flax.
6. To put something in the inside of; to fill; to supply, as a purse with money.
   
   

   The charge amounteth very high for any one man's purse, except lined beyond ordinary, to reach unto. Carew.

   Till coffee has her stomach lined. Swift.

7. A more or less threadlike mark of pen, pencil, or graver; any long mark; as, a chalk line.
8. To represent by lines; to delineate; to portray.
   
   
   [R.] "Pictures fairest lined." Shak.
9. To place persons or things along the side of for security or defense; to strengthen by adding anything; to fortify; as, to line works with soldiers.
   
   

   Line and new repair our towns of war
   With men of courage and with means defendant. Shak.

10. The course followed by anything in motion; hence, a road or route; as, the arrow descended in a curved line; the place is remote from lines of travel.
11. To read or repeat line by line; as, to line out a hymn.
    
    

    This custom of reading or lining, or, as it was frequently called, "deaconing" the hymn or psalm in the churches, was brought about partly from necessity. N. D. Gould.

12. To impregnate; -- applied to brute animals.
    
    
    Creech.

    Lined gold, gold foil having a lining of another metal.

13. Direction; as, the line of sight or vision.
14. To form into a line; to align; as, to line troops.
    
    

    To line bees, to track wild bees to their nest by following their line of flight. -- To line up (Mach.), to put in alignment; to put in correct adjustment for smooth running. See 3d Line, 19.

15. A row of letters, words, etc., written or printed; esp., a row of words extending across a page or column.
16. A short letter; a note; as, a line from a friend.
17. A verse, or the words which form a certain number of feet, according to the measure.
    
    

    In the preceding line Ulysses speaks of Nausicaa. Broome.

18. Course of conduct, thought, occupation, or policy; method of argument; department of industry, trade, or intellectual activity.
    
    

    He is uncommonly powerful in his own line, but it is not the line of a first-rate man. Coleridge.

19. That which has length, but not breadth or thickness.
20. The exterior limit of a figure, plat, or territory; boundary; contour; outline.
    
    

    Eden stretched her line
    From Auran eastward to the royal towers
    Of great Seleucia. Milton.

21. A threadlike crease marking the face or the hand; hence, characteristic mark.
    
    

    Though on his brow were graven lines austere. Byron.

    He tipples palmistry, and dines
    On all her fortune-telling lines. Cleveland.

22. Lineament; feature; figure.
    
    
    "The lines of my boy's face." Shak.
23. A straight row; a continued series or rank; as, a line of houses, or of soldiers; a line of barriers.
    
    

    Unite thy forces and attack their lines. Dryden.

24. A series or succession of ancestors or descendants of a given person; a family or race; as, the ascending or descending line; the line of descent; the male line; a line of kings.
    
    

    Of his lineage am I, and his offspring
    By very line, as of the stock real. Chaucer.

25. A connected series of public conveyances, and hence, an established arrangement for forwarding merchandise, etc.; as, a line of stages; an express line.
26. A circle of latitude or of longitude, as represented on a map.
    
    
    (b)
27. A long tape, or a narrow ribbon of steel, etc., marked with subdivisions, as feet and inches, for measuring; a tapeline.
28. A measuring line or cord.
    
    

    He marketh it out with a line. Is. xliv. 13.

    (b)

29. The proper relative position or adjustment of parts, not as to design or proportion, but with reference to smooth working; as, the engine is in line or out of line.
30. The track and roadbed of a railway; railroad.
31. A row of men who are abreast of one another, whether side by side or some distance apart; -- opposed to column.
    
    
    (b)
32. A trench or rampart.
    
    
    (b) pl.
33. Form of a vessel as shown by the outlines of vertical, horizontal, and oblique sections.
34. One of the straight horizontal and parallel prolonged strokes on and between which the notes are placed.
35. A number of shares taken by a jobber.
36. A series of various qualities and values of the same general class of articles; as, a full line of hosiery; a line of merinos, etc.
    
    
    McElrath.
37. The wire connecting one telegraphic station with another, or the whole of a system of telegraph wires under one management and name.
38. The reins with which a horse is guided by his driver.
    
    
    [U. S.]
39. A measure of length; one twelfth of an inch.
    
    

    Hard lines, hard lot. C. Kingsley. [See Def. 18.] -- Line breeding (Stockbreeding), breeding by a certain family line of descent, especially in the selection of the dam or mother. -- Line conch (Zoöl.), a spiral marine shell (Fasciolaria distans), of Florida and the West Indies. It is marked by narrow, dark, revolving lines. -- Line engraving. (a) Engraving in which the effects are produced by lines of different width and closeness, cut with the burin upon copper or similar material; also, a plate so engraved. (b) A picture produced by printing from such an engraving. -- Line of battle. (a) (Mil. Tactics) The position of troops drawn up in their usual order without any determined maneuver. (b) (Naval) The line or arrangement formed by vessels of war in an engagement. -- Line of battle ship. See Ship of the line, below. -- Line of beauty (Fine Arts), an abstract line supposed to be beautiful in itself and absolutely; -- differently represented by different authors, often as a kind of elongated S (like the one drawn by Hogarth). -- Line of centers. (Mach.) (a) A line joining two centers, or fulcra, as of wheels or levers. (b) A line which determines a dead center. See Dead center, under Dead. -- Line of dip (Geol.), a line in the plane of a stratum, or part of a stratum, perpendicular to its intersection with a horizontal plane; the line of greatest inclination of a stratum to the horizon. -- Line of fire (Mil.), the direction of fire. -- Line of force (Physics), any line in a space in which forces are acting, so drawn that at every point of the line its tangent is the direction of the resultant of all the forces. It cuts at right angles every equipotential surface which it meets. Specifically (Magnetism), a line in proximity to a magnet so drawn that any point in it is tangential with the direction of a short compass needle held at that point. Faraday. -- Line of life (Palmistry), a line on the inside of the hand, curving about the base of the thumb, supposed to indicate, by its form or position, the length of a person's life. -- Line of lines. See Gunter's line. -- Line of march. (Mil.) (a) Arrangement of troops for marching. (b) Course or direction taken by an army or body of troops in marching. -- Line of operations, that portion of a theater of war which an army passes over in attaining its object. H. W. Halleck. -- Line of sight (Firearms), the line which passes through the front and rear sight, at any elevation, when they are sighted at an object. -- Line tub (Naut.), a tub in which the line carried by a whaleboat is coiled. -- Mason and Dixon's line, the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, as run before the Revolution (1764-1767) by two English astronomers named Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. In an extended sense, the line between the free and the slave States. -- On the line, on a level with the eye of the spectator; -- said of a picture, as hung in an exhibition of pictures. -- Right line, a straight line; the shortest line that can be drawn between two points. -- Ship of the line, formerly, a ship of war large enough to have a place in the line of battle; a vessel superior to a frigate; usually, a seventy-four, or three- decker; -- called also line of battle ship. Totten. -- To cross the line, to cross the equator, as a vessel at sea. -- To give a person line, to allow him more or less liberty until it is convenient to stop or check him, like a hooked fish that swims away with the line. -- Water line (Shipbuilding), the outline of a horizontal section of a vessel, as when floating in the water.