Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In the United States, the social or political line of demarkation between the white or dominant class and persons of pure or mixed African descent.
- noun plural In seal-engraving, and in heraldic work in black and white, fine parallel lines engraved upon the field for the conventional expression of heraldic colors.
- noun In psychophysics: The outline of the plane figure (circle, square, triangle) which gives a diagrammatic representation of color sensations and their interrelation.
- noun Any straight line joining two points on or within the solid figure (sphere, double cone, double pyramid) which gives a diagrammatic representation of the totality of visual sensations.
Etymologies
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Examples
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However, she later admitted (Ebony, May 1980) that she really married Hayton to advance her career and cross the “color-line” in show business.
Lena Horne Passes « 2010
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If the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line, Du Bois, like the French political theorist Charles Fourier, seemed on the verge of arguing that the greater cause of human misery is due to the primordial theft of property that gave rise to private enterprise and the market economy.
DARKWATER W.E.B. DU BOIS 2004
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More alarming was the way Tolson's involvement with southern tenant farmers was employed in the film to elevate his--and by extension Washington's--race man status, providing little detail to how deadly and under-appreciated labor and farmer organizing was in the South, particularly when such organizing aimed to bring together farmers and workers across the color-line.
Interesting Review of The Great Debaters Anxious Black Woman 2008
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Isn't that the very behavior that creates the majority of the color-line problems?
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Such an essentially honest-hearted and generous people cannot cite the caste-leveling precepts of Christianity, or believe in equality of opportunity for all men, without coming to feel more and more with each generation that the present drawing of the color-line is a flat contradiction to their beliefs and professions.
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Such an essentially honest-hearted and generous people cannot cite the caste-leveling precepts of Christianity, or believe in equality of opportunity for all men, without coming to feel more and more with each generation that the present drawing of the color-line is a flat contradiction to their beliefs and professions.
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Wherever the discussion began it promptly shaded off toward the color-line and insult.
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Stokely Carmichael called for a pure color-line division, blacks of all classes united against all whites.
1968 Haldeman, Joe & Fields, Trinity 1984
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It was a color-line, not a wire, but with magic it could perform the same function.
Split Infinity Anthony, Piers 1980
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It was a color-line, not a wire, but with magic it could perform the same function.
Split Infinity Anthony, Piers 1980
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