line of fire

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Related to line of fire: line of duty

line of fire

n. pl. lines of fire

1. The trajectory of a bullet, shell, or other explosive projectile.

2. A position or situation in which one is open or vulnerable to attack.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

line of fire

(Firearms, Gunnery, Ordnance & Artillery) the flight path of a missile discharged or to be discharged from a firearm

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

line′ of fire′

a horizontal line from the muzzle of a weapon in the direction of the axis of the bore, just prior to firing.

[1855–60]

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Noun

line of fire - the path of a missile discharged from a firearm

itinerary, route, path - an established line of travel or access

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References in classic literature ?

Then, with an awful suddenness, their cry became the cry of death, for out from the bushes belched a yellow line of fire as the rifles of Trent and his men rang out their welcome.

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A little farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing, and a line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late field of hay.

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Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line of fire with my teeth; and I've done it, too; at least I've dragged HIM out of the battle when he was wounded.

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Looking back presently, I could see, through the crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill.

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He and D'Arnot stepped back a few paces to be out of the line of fire as the men paced slowly apart.

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It came toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended far off into the distance.

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At long intervals a flash of lightning clove it with a quivering line of fire that revealed a heaving world of water where was nothing before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver, and lit up the faces of the men with a ghastly luster!

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It was exactly opposite the door--it was straight in the line of fire! Sir Joseph' s life (as Turlington had deliberately calculated) was actually in greater danger than Launce's life.

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But right across the southern horizon was one long vivid scarlet streak, waxing and waning in vivid pulses of life, leaping suddenly to a crimson zenith and then dying down to a glowing line of fire.

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"What links?" I asked carelessly, while twins in a perambulator got out of our line of fire.

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He looked happily at the line of fires, with people grouped about them, and the colour of the flames against the night; at the end of the meadow was a line of great elms, and above the starry sky.

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Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, In the Line of Fire: A Study of Selected Felonious Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers (Washington, DC, 1997), 35-37.