redline
Americanverb (used with object)
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to treat by redlining (an area or neighborhood).
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to establish the recommended safe speed of (an airplane).
The bomber is redlined at 650 miles an hour.
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to draw a canceling red line through (an item on a list).
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to mark or designate for cancellation, rejection, dismissal, or the like.
club members redlined for unpaid dues.
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to cause (an airplane) to be grounded.
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
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(esp of a bank or group of banks) to refuse a loan to (a person or country) because of the presumed risks involved
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to restrict people's access to goods or services on the basis of the area in which they live
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of redline
Explanation
To redline is to deny someone a loan based on where they live. This discriminatory practice is based on identifying neighborhoods with many residents who are poor, Black, or members of other ethnic minorities. It was once common for banks to redline, based on the bigoted belief that nonwhite people were less likely to repay loans. Other kinds of redlining include denying people insurance, healthcare, voting access, and fresh food because of their address. Prior to the 1960s, to redline was to "mark in red ink." The term's current definition came from the practice of marking areas on a map to delineate the neighborhoods in which non-white people and other ethnic minorities lived.
Vocabulary lists containing redline
Human Geography - Middle School
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Human Geography - High School
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Unequal: A Story of America
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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.
See Examples For:
Flirting between gears near its 8,600-rpm redline, the Z06 roars and seethes like a blast furnace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
Kazakhstan's Rybakina, whose power from the baseline is among the very best when she finds her groove, continued to redline in the second set.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2025
A lone rider leaves the redline at Union Station.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2025
“AI must be guided in a direction that is conducive to the progress of humanity, so there should be a redline in AI development — a red line that must not be crossed,” without elaborating.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 18, 2024
They were past redline now, flying at 220 miles per hour and in danger of ripping the plane’s wings off.
From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone
Weber’s métier is working in industrial corridors in redlined neighborhoods helping communities of color heal from the effects of environmental and social ills, often a lengthy and collaborative process.
From New York Times ● May 29, 2024
Today, many redlined communities across the state experience the worst air pollution, some on the fringes or within industrial zones that support airports, warehouses and industries like fossil fuel refineries.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 29, 2024
Recently, researchers showed that historically redlined areas have higher levels of air pollution than those that received higher ratings, and similar disparities affect many cities across the U.S.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 21, 2024
Other researchers have found strong links between historically redlined communities and increased risks of diabetes, hypertension and early mortality from heart disease.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2023
If you can get no information at all from automobile sources, you can make use—with great caution—of bicycle road maps, of the maps rather than the redlined routes.
From Two Thousand Miles on an Automobile Being a Desultory Narrative of a Trip Through New England, New York, Canada, and the West, By "Chauffeur" by Arthur Jerome Eddy
It brings to mind not just dressing and African-American fashions, but also the historically peripatetic nature of black communities due to the oppression of Jim Crow and redlining.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Given the nation’s economic disparities, there’s been particular concern about a dispersal of Altadena’s long-standing Black community, which is focused on the town’s west side, in part due to a history of segregation and redlining.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2025
Many were boxed out of neighborhoods east of Lake Avenue because of redlining and settled in West Altadena.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 24, 2025
Insurance brokers who help affordable housing providers have been redoubling their efforts to overcome stereotypes, if not outright redlining discrimination, that historically tended to elevate rates in low-income neighborhoods.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2024
He leaned forward to hunch over his desk, and ignoring Scott, he went back to redlining another writer's story.
From Terminal Compromise: computer terrorism: when privacy and freedom are the victims: a novel by Winn Schwartau
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
