Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a rectilinear manner or direction; in a right line.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In a rectilinear fashion.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

rectilinear +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • The eye itself is not conscious of this 'break' in the light-rays, because it is accustomed to 'project' all light impressions rectilinearly out into space (Fig. 12b.).

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • With respect to the Galileian reference-body K, such a ray of light is transmitted rectilinearly with the velocity c.

    Chapter 22. A Few Inferences from the General Theory of Relativity 1920

  • The true must be essentially the self-reflecting self-contained recurrent, that which secures itself by including its own other and negating it; that makes a spherical system with no loose ends hanging out for foreignness to get a hold upon; that is forever rounded in and closed, not strung along rectilinearly and open at its ends like that universe of simply collective or additive form which

    A Pluralistic Universe Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy William James 1876

  • Though rather less than ten inches in length by about three inches in breadth, it exhibits no fewer than seven of those round, beautifully sculptured scars, ranged rectilinearly along the trunk, by which this ancient genus is so remarkably characterized.

    The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed Hugh Miller 1829

  • While the experiments of Professor Bjerknes upon pulsating and rectilinearly vibrating bodies and their influence upon one another illustrate by very close analogies the phenomena of magnetism, those upon circularly vibrating bodies and their mutual influences bear a remarkable analogy to electrical phenomena; and it is a significant fact that exactly as in the case of magnetic illustration, the analogies are direct as regards the phenomena of induction, and inverse in their illustration of direct electrical action.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 Various

  • a parallelogram in a drawing-room, and the very same number and the very same faces, rectilinearly seated in the very same form in a dining-room.

    Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 421 Volume 17, New Series, January 24, 1852 Various 1836

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