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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
lineal
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
descendant
▪ Their Mr. A. Waugh is a lineal descendant of Gifford, by the way of mentality.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lineal

Lineal \Lin"e*al\ (l[i^]n"[-e]*al), a. [L. linealis belonging to a line, fr. linea line: cf. F. lin['e]al. See 3d Line.]

  1. Descending in a direct line from an ancestor; hereditary; derived from ancestors; -- opposed to collateral; as, a lineal descent or a lineal descendant.

    The prime and ancient right of lineal succession.
    --Locke.

  2. Inheriting by direct descent; having the right by direct descent to succeed (to).

    For only you are lineal to the throne.
    --Dryden.

  3. Composed of lines; delineated; as, lineal designs.

  4. In the direction of a line; of or pertaining to a line; measured on, or ascertained by, a line; linear; as, lineal magnitude.

    Lineal measure, the measure of length; -- usually written linear measure.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
lineal

late 14c., from Old French lineal (14c.), from Late Latin linealis "pertaining to a line," from linea (see line (n.)). Related: Lineally.

Wiktionary
lineal

a. 1 (context family English) Of a family relationship that includes mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons, etc. as opposed to collateral. 2 Inheriting by direct descent; having the right by direct descent to succeed (''to''). 3 Composed of lines; delineated. 4 In the direction of a line; of a line; of or relating to a line; measured on, or ascertained by, a line; linear.

WordNet
lineal
  1. adj. in a straight unbroken line of descent from parent to child; "lineal ancestors"; "lineal heirs"; "a direct descendant of the king"; "direct heredity" [syn: direct] [ant: collateral]

  2. arranged in a line

Wikipedia
Lineal

Lineal is a geometric term of location which may refer to:

  • pertaining to a lineage
    • Lineal kinship or "Eskimo kinship"
    • Lineal descendant, a blood relative in the direct line of descent
    • Lineal primogeniture or "Absolute primogeniture"
    • Lineal succession (Latter Day Saints), right of inheritance of church offices
    • Lineal championship, in boxing, "the man who beats the man" takes his championship
  • pertaining to a line
    • Foot (length) or "lineal foot"
    • Lineal typeface, with no serifs
  • Ciudad Lineal, district of Madrid, Spain
  • Lineal set of vectors from a vector space

Usage examples of "lineal".

This last opinion was strengthened by the shabby gentleman with the red nose and oilcloth hat, and whom I strongly suspected of being a lineal descendant from the variant Bardolph.

The squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced to the times when the Romans held possession of the island, plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant of the sword dance of the ancients.

There is nothing like resolute good-humored credulity in these matters, and on this occasion I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine hostess to a lineal descent from the poet, when, unluckily for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own composition, which set all belief in her own consanguinity at defiance.

May not those naturalists who, knowing far less of the laws of inheritance than does the breeder, and knowing no more than he does of the intermediate links in the long lines of descent, yet admit that many of our domestic races have descended from the same parents--may they not learn a lesson of caution, when they deride the idea of species in a state of nature being lineal descendants of other species?

When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.

As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world.

He came not merely as Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, but as the acknowledged successor of Stephen, the lineal heir of William the Conqueror, Henry Beauclerc, Matilda Empress.

Burns for the Museum: the Maxwells of Terreagles are the lineal descendants of the Earls of Nithsdale.

The three in the canoe were lineal descendants of Revolutionary stock.

It has ever since been in possession of lineal descendants of the first owner, James Averell, Jr.

England, the lineal heir of the crown, who, by his restoration, would replace every thing on ancient foundations.

Lancaster had paved their way to sovereign power, insisted on the calamities which had attended the government of Henry, exhorted them to return into the right path, by doing justice to the lineal successor, and thus pleaded his cause before them as his natural and legal judges.

Instead of the lineal extraction of the complicated scheme out of one cell, there has been, from epoch to epoch, the simultaneous production of all included in one of its sections.

The Jewish dogmas, therefore, descended to them as a natural lineal inheritance.

Finally, we are the more confirmed in this supposition when we find that his lineal disciples and most competent expounders, such as Proclus, and nearly all his later commentators, such as Ritter, have so understood him.