The Collaborative International Dictionary
Horizontal \Hor`i*zon"tal\, a. [Cf. F. horizontal.]
Pertaining to, or near, the horizon. ``Horizontal misty air.''
--Milton.Parallel to the horizon; on a level; as, a horizontalline or surface.
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Measured or contained in a plane of the horizon; as, horizontal distance.
Horizontal drill, a drilling machine having a horizontal drill spindle.
Horizontal engine, one the piston of which works horizontally.
Horizontal fire (Mil.), the fire of ordnance and small arms at point-blank range or at low angles of elevation.
Horizontal force (Physics), the horizontal component of the earth's magnetic force.
Horizontal line (Descriptive Geometry & Drawing), a constructive line, either drawn or imagined, which passes through the point of sight, and is the chief line in the projection upon which all verticals are fixed, and upon which all vanishing points are found.
Horizontal parallax. See under Parallax.
Horizontal plane (Descriptive Geometry), a plane parallel to the horizon, upon which it is assumed that objects are projected. See Projection. It is upon the horizontal plane that the ground plan of the buildings is supposed to be drawn.
Horizontal projection, a projection made on a plane parallel to the horizon.
Horizontal range (Gunnery), the distance in a horizontal plane to which a gun will throw a projectile.
Horizontal water wheel, a water wheel in which the axis is vertical, the buckets or floats revolving in a horizontal plane, as in most turbines.
Usage examples of "horizontal line".
Apex of leaf 9 inches from the glass in the line of its inclination, and 4 3/4 in a horizontal line.
The stylus, making a faint, soft hissing sound, was no longer tracing out a continuously horizontal line, but was moving rapidly up and down across the paper, tracing out the outline of the block of ice passing astern above us.
If you lay a sheet of white paper on an old gravestone, and sweep the tip of a pencil across it, you get one horizontal line, dark in some places and faint in others, and not very meaningful.
He saw nothing like it, but far off to his left he caught a glimpse of a long horizontal line across the face of the sea.
With each transfer the water became more and more cloudy, the juice more and more fluid and transparent, and the horizontal line marking the boundary between the two harder and harder to detect.
The spears, which had been pointing in the air, bowed down to a horizontal line and pointed at each other.
Within, a horizontal line rocked back and forth, reminding her of an instrument she had seen in the aircraft carrying her from Ursulaborg.
This process was represented by drawing a horizontal line at the base of the vertical one, in its right, and making, as a result, a capital letter L.
An electric-blue circle grew on its photoplastic surface, followed by a horizontal line that bisected it, then two curves with the same radius as the original circle that sprouted from the ends of the line and met at the top.
Loring slapped his visor down by reflex, and the bright day turned dark except for the long narrow horizontal line of the vision slit.
On its left flank there was an opaque red circle with a waving red line descending from it also on the left flank, and on the right flank, too, there was a black, horizontal line, with a semicircular, curved blue line above it.