"draw a line" meaning in English

See draw a line in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-draw a line.ogg [Australia] Forms: draws a line [present, singular, third-person], drawing a line [participle, present], drew a line [past], drawn a line [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|draw<,,drew,drawn> a line}} draw a line (third-person singular simple present draws a line, present participle drawing a line, simple past drew a line, past participle drawn a line)
  1. (idiomatic, often figurative) To delimit a boundary or border. Tags: figuratively, idiomatic, often Related terms: draw a line in the sand, draw a line under
    Sense id: en-draw_a_line-en-verb-O8XDjlys Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for draw a line meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "draws a line",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drawing a line",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drew a line",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drawn a line",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "draw<,,drew,drawn> a line"
      },
      "expansion": "draw a line (third-person singular simple present draws a line, present participle drawing a line, simple past drew a line, past participle drawn a line)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "2008: Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World, Chapter VII\nHow to strike this balance —deterring China, on the one hand, accommodating its legitimate growth, on the other— is the central strategic challenge for American diplomacy. The United States can and should draw lines with China. But it should also recognize that it cannot draw lines everywhere."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 November 20, Nina Bernstein, “Storm Bared a Lack of Options for the Homeless in New York”, in New York Times",
          "text": "Seth Diamond, commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services, drew a line between evacuees and the “traditional homeless,” arguing that court-ordered rules on shelter standards do not apply to short-term shelter from a natural disaster.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To delimit a boundary or border."
      ],
      "id": "en-draw_a_line-en-verb-O8XDjlys",
      "links": [
        [
          "delimit",
          "delimit"
        ],
        [
          "boundary",
          "boundary"
        ],
        [
          "border",
          "border"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, often figurative) To delimit a boundary or border."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "draw a line in the sand"
        },
        {
          "word": "draw a line under"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "idiomatic",
        "often"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-draw a line.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/16/En-au-draw_a_line.ogg/En-au-draw_a_line.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/En-au-draw_a_line.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "draw a line"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "draws a line",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drawing a line",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drew a line",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drawn a line",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "draw<,,drew,drawn> a line"
      },
      "expansion": "draw a line (third-person singular simple present draws a line, present participle drawing a line, simple past drew a line, past participle drawn a line)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "draw a line in the sand"
    },
    {
      "word": "draw a line under"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "2008: Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World, Chapter VII\nHow to strike this balance —deterring China, on the one hand, accommodating its legitimate growth, on the other— is the central strategic challenge for American diplomacy. The United States can and should draw lines with China. But it should also recognize that it cannot draw lines everywhere."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 November 20, Nina Bernstein, “Storm Bared a Lack of Options for the Homeless in New York”, in New York Times",
          "text": "Seth Diamond, commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services, drew a line between evacuees and the “traditional homeless,” arguing that court-ordered rules on shelter standards do not apply to short-term shelter from a natural disaster.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To delimit a boundary or border."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "delimit",
          "delimit"
        ],
        [
          "boundary",
          "boundary"
        ],
        [
          "border",
          "border"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, often figurative) To delimit a boundary or border."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "idiomatic",
        "often"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-draw a line.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/16/En-au-draw_a_line.ogg/En-au-draw_a_line.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/En-au-draw_a_line.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "draw a line"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.