ˈtouch-line
Also touchline, touch line.
[f. touch n. or v. + line n.2]
† 1. Geom. A straight line that touches a curve; a tangent. Obs.
| 1551 Recorde Pathw. Knowl. i. Defin., A touche lyne, is a line that runneth a long by the edge of a circle, onely touching it, but doth not crosse the circumference of it. 1593 T. Fale Dialling 7 Which shall be called the touch line or line of Contingence. 1675 Collins in Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men (1841) I. 217 If you conceive a chord line to join R, T, and a touch-line to be drawn at either of those. |
2. A line in a diagram representing the touch of the counter of a ship: see touch n. 23.
| 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XVII. 392/1 Take the round up of the upper counter from the dimensions, and set it below the touch at the middle, and with a pencil draw a level line; take also the round aft, and set it forward from the touch on the touch line, and square it down to the pencil line. |
3. Football. The boundary line on each side of the field of play, extending from goal-line to goal-line: cf. touch n. 12. Also in some other ball games, and fig.
| 1868 Boy's Own Bk. 132 [Diagram of football ground]. The goals at either end;..the goal lines;..touch, the touch lines. 1889 Pauline VIII. 38 The kick, which was very near the touch-line, was not successful. 1895 Outing (U.S.) XXVII. 247/2 The Canadian football field... Along the edges, from one end to another, run the ‘touch lines’, and when the ball goes over these it is not in play. 1932 Auden Orators ii. 46 The two-faced, the obscure and amazed, the touch-line admirers. 1964 Sunday Times 25 Oct. 22/5 A charming touchline companion called the [hockey] match ‘grotty’. 1973 Park & Fahey Team Handball 50 The Boundary-Lines on the long sides shall be termed the Touch-lines. 1973 Nature 9 Nov. 108/2 From the touchlines the editor does, however, bias the issue by setting H. G. Haas's article on ‘Active Ion Transport’ immediately before that on the sinoatrial node. |