quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- line
- line: [OE] The closest modern English line comes to its ancestor is probably in the fisherman’s ‘rod and line’ – a ‘string’ or ‘chord’. For it goes back to Latin līnea ‘string’. This was a derivative of līnum ‘flax’ (source of English linen), and hence meant etymologically ‘flaxen thread’. English acquired it in two separate phases.
First of all it was borrowed directly from Latin in the Old English period, and then it made a return appearance via Old French ligne in the 14th century; the two have coalesced to form modern English line. Derived forms include lineage [14], lineal [15], lineament [15], and liner [19]. The last is based on the sense ‘shipping line’, which goes back to the notion of a ‘line’ or succession of ships plying between ports.
=> align, lineal, linen, liner - liner (n.1)
- "ship belonging to a shipping line," 1838, from line (n.) on notion of a succession of ships plying between ports along regular "lines." Line in this sense first attested 1786 in reference to stagecoaches. Cosmetics sense first recorded 1926, short for eye-liner. The type of baseball hit was so called from 1874 (line drive attested from 1899).