The Collaborative International Dictionary
Neat \Neat\, a. [Compar. Neater; superl. Neatest.] [OE. nett, F. nett, fr. L. nitidus, fr. nitere to shine. Cf. Nitid, Net, a., Natty.]
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Free from that which soils, defiles, or disorders; clean; cleanly; tidy.
If you were to see her, you would wonder what poor body it was that was so surprisingly neat and clean.
--Law. Free from what is unbecoming, inappropriate, or tawdry; simple and becoming; pleasing with simplicity; tasteful; chaste; as, a neat style; a neat dress.
Free from admixture or adulteration; good of its kind; as, neat brandy; to drink one's vodka neat. Hence: (Chem.) Pure; undiluted; as, dissolved in neat acetone. ``Our old wine neat.''
--Chapman.Excellent in character, skill, or performance, etc.; nice; finished; adroit; as, a neat design; a neat thief.
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With all deductions or allowances made; net.
Note: [In this sense usually written net. See Net, a., 3.]
neat line (Civil Engin.), a line to which work is to be built or formed.
Neat work, work built or formed to neat lines.
Syn: Nice; pure; cleanly; tidy; trim; spruce.
Wiktionary
n. (alternative form of neatline English)
Usage examples of "neat line".
The sheep lies there without struggling, and the shepherd takes a sharp knife and draws a single, neat line across its throat.
He was twenty-four years old, stockily built, with a reddish beard that started at his ears and met in a neat line just at the edge of his chin.
He looked around at his men, moving forward in a neat line, felt suddenly ridiculous, thought, Yes, of course, that's us.
He stepped into his thongs and nodded to his servants, who had been assembled in a neat line to bow him off, as was custom.
They moved in formation, with a most undoglike precision, and arranged themselves in a neat line as they sat on the rug.
Andrew stared at the far side of Kansas Street, where until just forty seconds ago there had been a neat line of middle-class houses.
The neat line of tollbooths guarding the access had been turned into vacant-eyed skeletons of smashed Pola-Glas.
He stuck a finger into the side of his mouth and pulled back his check, exposing a tuft of130 Diana Gabaldonbloodstained wadding protruding from the tooth socket and a neat line of black stitching on the gum.
As Regan's group went out of harbour in neat line ahead at eight knots another group followed shortly.
Flavia and Rojer both nodded and simultaneously the three Primes lifted the carriers and deposited them in a neat line on the Refugee's hangar deck where once the deadly Hiver scout ships had been housed.
I checked the front of the building behind the tree and found a neat line of bullet-holes stitched across the front.