They pointed out to them that the firmament, with its infinitude of stars, may be considered as one vast dial-plate, upon which the moon travels, indicating the true time to all the inhabitants of the earth; that it is during this movement that the Queen of Night exhibits her different phases; that the moon is full when she is in opposition with the sun, that is when the three bodies are on the same straight line, the earth occupying the center; that she is new when she is in conjunction with the sun, that is, when she is between it and the earth; and, lastly that she is in her first or last quarter, when she makes with the sun and the earth an angle of which she herself occupies the apex.
The term parallax proving "caviare to the general," they further explained that it meant the angle formed by the inclination of two straight lines drawn from either extremity of the earth's radius to the moon.
Mudge, who was at the rudder, kept in a
straight line, and by a turn of his hand checked the lurches which the vehicle had a tendency to make.
I knew that the island was not so large but that I could easily find the sea if I did but move in a
straight line, but there came the difficulty as there was no way in which I could direct my course and hold it, the sun, of course, being always directly above my head, and the trees so thickly set that I could see no distant object which might serve to guide me in a
straight line.
To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far away from it in a
straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.
Every fine
straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand.
It is to be almost inclosed by massive stone piers, one of which will extend into the sea over three thousand feet in a
straight line.
Afterwards, he added, as he grew older, all that nervousness wore off completely; and I observed his weary eyes gaze steadily ahead, as if there had been nothing between him and the
straight line of sea and sky, where whatever a seaman is looking for is first bound to appear.
A
straight line drawn through the axis of the piece would have passed through the center of the orb of night.
In the case of the barrier-reef of New Caledonia, which extends for 150 miles beyond the northern point of the islands, in the same
straight line with which it fronts the west coast, it is hardly possible to believe that a bank of sediment could thus have been straightly deposited in front of a lofty island, and so far beyond its termination in the open sea.
Personally, he now inclines to the opinion of the Sphere that the
Straight Lines are in many important respects superior to the Circles.
The green curtains with their peacock design, hung in
straight lines, and the green carpet, in the pattern of which pale rabbits frolicked among leafy trees, suggested the influence of William Morris.
straight line - a line traced by a point traveling in a constant direction; a line of zero curvature; "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line"