broken line
Americannoun
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a discontinuous line or series of line segments, as a series of dashes, or a figure made up of line segments meeting at oblique angles.
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a highway marking consisting of a series of disconnected line segments painted between lanes of a roadway, indicating that crossing from one to the other is permissible.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
These five nations that have recently experienced military coups form a broken line that stretches across the wide bulge of Africa, from Guinea on the west coast to Sudan in the east.
From New York Times • Jan. 28, 2022
“And there’s a very broken line that connects the different Americas. In 2020, we still feel the oppressive issues that Dr. King fought against. He focused on the same things we’re focusing on now.”
From Seattle Times • Jan. 19, 2020
The broken line along 15 Mile Road caused a football field-sized sinkhole on Christmas Eve, led to condemnation of three houses and threatened to dump raw sewage into thousands of basements through the broken pipe.
From Washington Times • Sep. 26, 2017
Or it can be used almost dry to make a broken line that scrapes along textured paper.
From The Guardian • Feb. 5, 2011
Molly looks at the perfect swoops hitting the broken line in exactly the same spot.
From "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
