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WordNet
get a line

v. get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally; "I learned that she has two grown-up children"; "I see that you have been promoted" [syn: learn, hear, get word, get wind, pick up, find out, discover, see]

Usage examples of "get a line".

If he could cut off the supply of this drug even temporarily, he might get a line on its effect on Steel Jeffers.

Doc said there probably wouldn't be any of the man's fingerprints on the tip sheets, but they would look at them anyway and, by trying to trace them from their source, possibly get a line on something.

After all, he had no way of knowing that Jake had hung around the corner bar long enough to get a line on one Carl Burns, janitor, and on Carl Burns' political preferences.

Besides, unless we give him something else to think about he may get a line on one of us,—.

But he was attempting to get a line on the aircraft even as he decided that his own turn had come.

Alvarez turned editorial office inside out trying to get a line back to Adam Selene.

He gets to figuring could he get a line somehow on the two lovebirds he could maybe collect twice--once from Eddie Mars and once from Regan's wife.