Horizontal line


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Related to Horizontal line: Vertical line
(Descriptive Geometry & Drawing) a constructive line, either drawn or imagined, which passes through the point of sight, and is the chief line in the projection upon which all verticals are fixed, and upon which all vanishing points are found.

See also: Horizontal

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.
References in classic literature ?
If we suppose the amount of change between each horizontal line in our diagram to be excessively small, these three forms may still be only well-marked varieties; or they may have arrived at the doubtful category of sub-species; but we have only to suppose the steps in the process of modification to be more numerous or greater in amount, to convert these three forms into well-defined species: thus the diagram illustrates the steps by which the small differences distinguishing varieties are increased into the larger differences distinguishing species.
The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed.
How long he sat there he did not know, until, suddenly, across his sightless vision he saw form a long horizontal line of white.
Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and leant so far back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to throat.
The curiosity excited by this unusual exposure of the secrets of the lake seemed to be mutual between the heiress of the land and the lord of these waters, for the “ “salmon-trout” soon announced his interest by raising his head and body for a few degrees above a horizontal line, and then dropping them again into a horizontal position.
That was all--there was no clear-cut horizontal line marking the dip of the globe below the line of vision.
Numerous small streams come rushing and boiling through narrow clefts and ravines: one of a considerable size issued from the face of a precipice, within twenty-five feet of its summit; and after running in nearly a horizontal line for about one hundred feet, fell, by numerous small cascades, to the rocky bank of the river.
While watching some that were suspended by a single thread, I several times observed that the slightest breath of air bore them away out of sight, in a horizontal line.
They mistake their carriage and its horizontal lines for a proper measure of the normal plain, and therefore all the objects outside which really are in a horizontal position must show a disproportion of twenty to twenty-five degrees declivity, in regard to the mountain."
A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad lines of stone colour.
The lacerations occurred oftenest in horizontal lines, though there were perpendicular lines as well.
Her bloom gave place to the paleness of death; her soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror; while those hands, which she had raised, clasped in each other, toward heaven, dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed forward in convulsed motion.

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