rectilinear, a. and n.
(rɛktɪˈlɪnɪə(r))
[f. as rectiline + -ar. Cf. linear a.]
A. adj.
1. Of motion, course, or direction: Taking or having the course of a straight line; tending always to the same point.
| 1659 H. More Immort. Soul iii. xiii. §6 A Bullet.. cast up into the Air, would never descend again, but would persist in a rectilinear motion. 1696 Whiston Th. Earth i. (1722) 1 All Motion is of it self rectilinear. a 1774 Goldsm. Surv. Exp. Philos. (1776) II. 350 In proportion as each succeeding ray has less force, it is driven more out of its rectilinear direction. 1830 Kater & Lardner Mech. xviii. 247 Continued rectilinear motion is observed in the flowing of a river. 1889 Nature 21 Feb. 402/2 The play of forces concerned in rectilinear oscillations. |
| transf. 1827 Hare Guesses Ser. ii. (1866) 340 The course of time is markt, not by the rectilinear flight, but by the oscillations and pulsations of life. |
2. Lying in, or forming, a straight line.
| 1704 Newton Optics (1721) 109 When I had caused the rectilinear sides..of the Spectrum of Colours made by the Prism to be distinctly defined. 1811 Pinkerton Petral. II. 24 The granite which forms this vein has shrunk..with some rectilinear fissures. 1837 Whewell Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857) I. 78 The rays of light are rectilinear. 1875 Blake Zool. 252 In the Conidæ the aperture is narrow and rectilinear, or nearly so. |
| transf. 1858 J. Martineau Stud. Chr. 69 It is by no means a rectilinear regiment of incessant priests; but a broken, scattered, yet glorious race of prophets. |
3. Of a figure or angle: Bounded or formed by straight lines.
| 1728 Pemberton Newton's Philos. 137 What has here been said upon this rectilinear figure [etc.]. 1840 Lardner Geom. 223 If one side of a plane rectilinear angle revolve round its other side as an axis, it will produce the surface of a right circular cone. 1863 E. V. Neale Anal. Th. & Nat. 255 A triangle is that plane rectilinear figure which has three sides. |
4. Characterized by straight lines.
| 1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Map, Rectilinear Maps are those wherein both the meridians and parallels are represented by right lines. 1827 H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 410 The rectilinear Gardens, and elaborate Topiary works handed down from antiquity. 1850 Parker Gloss. Archit. (ed. 5) 239 The same rectilinear arrangement also pervaded many of the details. 1861 Gd. Words Aug. 433/1 The modern city..has a trim, rectilinear..air about it. |
b. Arch. Suggested as a substitute for
perpendicular.
| 1826 Brit. Critic II. 376 It is not merely the vertical mullions that run in straight lines, but the horizontal transoms also... Hence we would call this the ‘Rectilinear style’. 1835 Whewell Arch. Notes Germ. Churches Pref. (1842) 21 The term Rectilinear, which has been suggested, would not apparently be an advantageous substitute for Perpendicular; for the mullions, the only members to which the description applies distinctively, are rectilinear only so far as they are perpendicular. 1849 E. Sharpe Treat. Decor. Wind. Tracery 8, I propose, then, to name these three styles of window tracery, Geometrical, Curvilinear, and Rectilinear. |
c. Of a sawing-machine: Having a straight (in place of a circular) saw.
| 1843 Holtzapffel Turning II. 739 Rectilinear sawing machines are for the most part derived from saws used by hand for similar purposes. |
d. Of a spectroscope or lens: (see
quots.).
| 1874 tr. Lommel's Light 149 The direct vision or rectilinear spectroscope which instead of a single prism contains a combination of prisms, so that there is no deflection. 1890 Woodbury Encycl. Photogr., Rectilinear, a term applied to lenses which have been corrected for aberration as much as possible, so that in photographing architectural subjects the lines appear perfectly straight in the image. |
B. n. 1. A rectilinear figure.
rare—1.
| 1766 Complete Farmer s.v. Surveying 7 G 4/2 To return to triangles, the most simple and primitive of all rectilinears. |
2. Photogr. A rectilinear lens. (
Cf. A. 4 d.)
| 1890 Woodbury Encycl. Photogr. 405 The rapid rectilinear will..be found very useful for copying purposes. 1892 Photogr. Ann. II. 39 With rapid rectilinears and the lenses on the same principle distortion is rarely found. |
Hence
rectiˈlinearism, tendency to straight lines.
| 1854 Blackw. Mag. LXXVI. 539 Brooks and rivers leap and run in courses which please all the more because dissimilar from the rectilinearism of utility. |