The Collaborative International Dictionary
Straight \Straight\, a. [Compar. Straighter; superl. Straightest.] [OE. strei?t, properly p. p. of strecchen to stretch, AS. streht, p. p. of streccan to stretch, to extend. See Stretch.]
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Right, in a mathematical sense; passing from one point to another by the nearest course; direct; not deviating or crooked; as, a straight line or course; a straight piece of timber.
And the crooked shall be made straight.
--Isa. xl. 4.There are many several sorts of crooked lines, but there is only one which is straight.
--Dryden. (Bot.) Approximately straight; not much curved; as, straight ribs are such as pass from the base of a leaf to the apex, with a small curve.
(Card Playing) Composed of cards which constitute a regular sequence, as the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten-spot; as, a straight hand; a straight flush.
Conforming to justice and rectitude; not deviating from truth or fairness; upright; as, straight dealing.
Unmixed; undiluted; as, to take liquor straight. [Slang]
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Making no exceptions or deviations in one's support of the organization and candidates of a political party; as, a straight Republican; a straight Democrat; also, containing the names of all the regularly nominated candidates of a party and no others; as, a straight ballot. [Political Cant, U.S.]
Straight arch (Arch.), a form of arch in which the intrados is straight, but with its joints drawn radially, as in a common arch.
A straight face, one giving no evidence of merriment or other emotion.
A straight line. ``That which lies evenly between its extreme points.''
--Euclid. ``The shortest line between two points.''
--Chauvenet. ``A line which has the same direction through its whole length.''
--Newcomb.Straight-way valve, a valve which, when opened widely, affords a straight passageway, as for water.
Usage examples of "a straight line".
To spare her mount she was allowed to use the lanes and roads, but the horde itself traveled in a straight line, across the country.
Euclid's axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points was an intuitive 'udgment based on experience.
At first it did not seem to deflect from a straight line, and they stood ready to turn on the apergetic force again, when the car very slowly began to show the effect of the moon's near pull.
The doctor took an accurate design of these mountains, which form four distinct ridges almost in a straight line, the northernmost being the longest.
Toward evening, the doctor calculated that the balloon had not made twenty miles during that whole burning day, and a heated gloom closed in upon it, as soon as the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, which was traced against the sky with all the precision of a straight line.
It was an almost perpendicular ridge that ended in a regular wall rising abruptly in a straight line.
When Captain Speke set out to discover Lake Ukereoue, he ascended more to the eastward in a straight line above Kazeh.
They were shaped like melon seeds and set level, in a straight line across his face.
Neither track need be a straight line: you can zig-zag as much as you like.
The sword, instead of speeding in a straight line, point first, as it should have, turned slowly upward until it was travelling at an angle of about forty-five degrees, with the point forward and downward.
What is more likely than that it is left behind by the earth in its orbit, or that it continues its forward motion, but in a straight line, till, reaching the paths of the greater planets, it is drawn to them by some affinity or attraction that the earth does not possess, and that the souls held in that manner remain here on probation, developing like young animals or children, till, by gradually acquired power, resulting from their wills, they are able to rise again into space, to revisit the earth, and in time to explore the universe?
The sky was black, and the illuminated main street stretched northward in a straight line.
He was pretty pissed, walking to me in a straight line, fists raised in anger.
Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal, climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird from branch to branch down the deepest declivity.
Most people think of time as a track that they run on from birth to death as inexorably as a train follows its rails-they feel instinctively that time follows a straight line, the past lying behind, the future lying in front.