cline

cline

See also: Cline and -cline

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klaɪn/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪn

Etymology 1

Ancient Greek κλῑ́νω (klī́nō, “to lean, incline”). Introduced by English evolutionary biologist and eugenicist Julian Huxley in 1938 after British mycologist John Ramsbottom suggested the term.[1]

Noun

cline (plural clines)

1. (systematics) A gradation in a character or phenotype within a species or other group.
2. Any graduated continuum.
   • 2005, Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson and Lutz Marten, The Dynamics of Language, an Introduction, p. 412

     This account effectively reconstructs the well-known grammaticalisation cline from anaphora to agreement, …

Derived terms

• clinal

Related terms

• client
• climate
• climax
• clinic
• clivus
• lean

Translations

systematics

Finnish: kliini

References

1. Julian Huxley (1938-07-30), “Clines: an Auxiliary Taxonomic Principle”, in Nature, DOI:10.1038/142219a0, ISSN 1476-4687, retrieved 2021-11-09, pages 219–220: “Some special term seems desirable to direct attention to variation within groups, and I propose the word cline, meaning a gradation in measurable characters. […] I have also to thank Dr. J. Ramsbottom for suggesting cline as the best term to denote gradation.”

Etymology 2

From c(ircle) + line; compare circline.

Noun

cline (plural clines)

1. (geometry, inversive geometry) A generalized circle.
   • 2001, Michael Henle, Modern Geometries: Non-Euclidean, Projective, and Discrete‎, page 77:

     Let C₁ and C₂ be two nonintersecting clines. Prove that there is a unique pair of points that are simultaneously symmetric to both C₁ and C₂.

   • 2009, Michael P. Hitchman, Geometry with an Introduction to Cosmic Topology‎, page 64:

     To visualize Möbius transformations, it is helpful to focus on fixed points and, in the case of two fixed points, on two families of clines with respect to these points.

   • 2011, Dominique Michelucci, What is a Line?, Pascal Schreck, Julien Narboux, Jürgen Richter-Gebert (editors), Automated Deduction in Geometry, 8th International Workshop, ADG 2010, Revised Selected Papers, LNAI 6877, page 139,

     Let Ω be a fixed, arbitrary, point. Then circles (in the classical sense) through Ω can be considered as lines. For convenience, such circles are called clines in this section. Two distinct clines cut in one point (ignoring Ω and the two cyclic points); it can happen that Ω is a double intersection point; in this case, one may say that the two clines are parallel, and that they meet at a point at infinity, which is Ω.

Synonyms

• (generalized circle): circline, generalized circle

Translations

circle

Finnish: suora tai ympyrä

Further reading

• cline at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• incel, incle