▪ I. † cline, v. Obs.
Also clyne.
[a. OF. cline-r to incline, perh. aphetic for acliner and encliner; cf. accline, incline. The 16th c. writers may have had the Gr. κλίνειν or L. -clīnāre directly in view.]
intr. To bow, incline.
| a 1400 Cov. Myst. (1841) 114 With alle mekenes I clyne to this acorde. a 1400–50 Alexander 1901 Ilka kyng sall clyne [v.r. incline] to my-selfe. c 1440 Bone Flor. 1128 Hyt to falsehed can clyne. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 82 Clynyn' or declynyn', declino. 1499 ― (Pynson), Clyne or bowe downe. |
Hence clined ppl. a., clining vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1594 Carew Tasso (1881) 96 Shamefast and downe clyned eyes. 1538 Leland Itin. I. 105 Nottingham..standith stately on a clyninge Hille. Ibid. II. 56 Bradeford stondith on the clining of a slaty Rokke. |
Or, are these cliving?
▪ II. cline, n. Biol.
(klaɪn)
[f. Gr. κλίνειν to slope, bend.]
A graded series of characters or differences in form within a species or other group of related organisms. Also transf., in Linguistics (see quot. 1961).
| 1938 J. S. Huxley in Nature 30 July 219/1 Some special term seems desirable to direct attention to variation within groups, and I propose the word cline, meaning a gradation in measurable characters. 1949 Brit. Birds XLII. 133 It may..be found that the characters of a species alter gradually and continuously over a wide region..such a gradation being conveniently defined by the term ‘cline’ introduced by Huxley. 1952 J. Fisher Fulmar v. 75 There appears to be a ‘cline’ in bill-length. 1952 New Biol. XII. 16 A gene may vary along a cline in space. As we travel southwards in Europe the genes for dark hair on the whole become commoner. 1961 M. A. K. Halliday in Word XVII. 249 A cline resembles a hierarchy in that it involves relation along a single dimension; but instead of being made up of a number of discrete terms a cline is a continuum carrying potentially infinite gradation. 1966 J. Ellis in C. E. Bazell In Memory of J. R. Firth 81 Between these extremes we might recognize a cline of potentiality/instantiality. 1970 Nature 14 Mar. 1027/2 Demonstration of a cline in gene frequencies provides indirect evidence for the action of natural selection at the locus in question. |