| English Dictionary |
LINEALLY
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Dictionary entry overview: What does lineally mean?
• LINEALLY (adverb)
The adverb LINEALLY has 1 sense:
1. by an unbroken line of descent
Familiarity information: LINEALLY used as an adverb is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
By an unbroken line of descent
Context example:
she is related lineally to the Royal Family
Pertainym:
lineal (in a straight unbroken line of descent from parent to child)
Context examples
I could plainly discover whence one family derives a long chin; why a second has abounded with knaves for two generations, and fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers; whence it came, what Polydore Virgil says of a certain great house, Nec vir fortis, nec foemina casta; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grew to be characteristics by which certain families are distinguished as much as by their coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble house, which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their posterity.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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