line

Reading level: easy

Estimated CEFR level: A1 — Beginner

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a formation of people or things one beside another
  2. noun a mark that is long relative to its width
  3. noun a formation of people or things one behind another

Etymology

From Middle English line, lyne, from Old English līne (“line, cable, rope, hawser, series, row, rule, direction”), from Proto-West Germanic *līnā, from Proto-Germanic *līnǭ (“line, rope, flaxen cord, thread”), from Proto-Germanic *līną (“flax, linen”), from Proto-Indo-European *līno- (“flax”). Influenced in Middle English by Middle French ligne (“line”), from Latin linea. More at linen. The oldest sense of the word is “rope, cord, thread”; from this the senses “path”, “continuous mark” were derived.

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