Line Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘fish’ and now look at ‘line’.

Line has been used to mean the same as ‘plumb line’ used in building since the 12th century.

Line in the sense of ‘boundary’ is first found in writing in 1590.

Line has been used instead of ‘crease’ (in the palm or on the face) since 1530.

Line, a reference to anything one-dimensional, has been seen since the 1550s.

Line as in ‘queue’ is first recorded in the same decade, the 1550s.

Line, as in ‘occupation’ appears from the 1630s.

Line in the business sense of ‘goods sold’ appears as recently as 1930.

Line in referring to insurance underwriting is seen from 1899.

Line of credit is first seen in 1958 – not suggesting nobody had credit prior to then, of course.

Line referring to public transport, ‘ships of the line’ for example, is seen from 1786.

Line as in ‘railway’ appears for the first time in 1825.

Line used to refer to a telegraph wire appears in 1847.

Line, as used by fishermen, is only described as such from the early 14th century.

Line as in ‘set of policies’ appears in 1892.

Nobody spoke of the political party line before the 1890s.

The line in the British Army, sometimes as ‘battle line’. Is seen from 1802.

To get a line on, ie to acquire information, appears in 1903.

Nobody was told to lay it on the line (in a monetary sense) until 1929.

Line of work first appears in 1957.

End of the line is not seen until 1948.

Line drawings are not described as such until 1891.

Line-ups are not seen until 1902.

Bee lines appear in 1830.

Lines, as in writing a letter, appears in the 1640s.

Lines as in dialogue for an actor appears from 1882.

Lines of communication is established from 1690, but then lost until re-emerging during the First World War.

No train ran on the main line until 1841.

A-line, describing the flared shape of a dress or skirt, is first seen in 1955.

Maginot Line, a defensive fortification appearing in 1936.

Off line, as in not connected to a computer, appears as early as 1950.

Clothes lines have been used since 1830 – and used to refer to a high tackle in rugby and American football since 1970.

Life lines have been cast to those needing rescuing since the early 18th century, and used to describe the line on ones palm since 1890.

Timelines have been described since 1876.

Nobody look the hardline until 1958.

Frontlines were used in the military sense from 1842.

Plumblines have been used since the middle of the 15th century.

The Mason-Dixon Line (if you don’t know, look it up) is coined in 1834.

And the bottom line, which can only come last, crops up from 1832.

Bottom Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘north’ and now look at ‘bottom’.

Bottom has a couple of meanings in English today, but historically different languages have given very different meanings. For example Old English referred to botm as ‘soil, deepest part’; Old Frisian ‘soil’, Old Norse ‘ground’, Old German ‘earth’, have similar meanings. Old Irish bondreferred to ‘the sole of the shoe’; but ‘bottom’ is the meaning for Sanskrit budhanah, Avestan buna, Greek pythmen, and Latin fundus all mean ‘bottom’.

Nobody got to the bottom of the matter until 1570.

Bottom as in ‘a person’s posterior’ is not seen in English until 1794.

Bottoms up began in 1875.

Bottom dollar dates from 1857, and seen in the UK just after the First World War.

It was felt from the bottom of the heart for the first time in 1540.

Fish were described as bottom-feeders, where applicable, from 1866.

To reach the bottom of (as in to fathom, which was the earlier expression) dates from 1808.

River bottoms were unrecorded until 1752.

Rock bottom dates from 1884.

Nobody referred to this being ‘the bottom line’ until 1832.

Nothing was bottomless (such as a pit) until the early 14th century. By design nothing can actually be bottomless, but ‘very deep’ doesn’t quite cut it.

Bell-bottom trousers were first described in 1882, and enjoyed a resurgence in the 1960s thanks to the fashion choices of the era.

Black bottom was a jazz dance seen at least by 1907, and became a national craze in the USA when it appeared in a Broadway musical.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel is difficult to date as the origin really did mean getting right to the bottom as barrels were used for storing many foodstuffs. However, we do know the metaphorical use dates from the 1930s.

In baseball the phrase ‘bottom of the inning’ refers to the latter stages of the inning, and the earliest known record of that is as early as August 1730.

Smooth (or soft) as a baby’s bottom appears in the middle of the 20th century.

Bottom drawer, in use by 1866, was where young ladies would gather household items for future use as a married woman.

Bottom the house, ie to give it a thorough clean, is first seen in the early 19th century.

Trackie bottoms is a phrase which has become a part of the English language in recent years, but is unknown before about 1999.