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Glite Dictionary
📰 News location line 🌏 International date line 🗓️ To mark with date
dateline

dateline

5 6.6
Imaginary line near the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the calendar date changes
  • noun
  • /ˈdeɪtˌlaɪn/
  • Specialized
translation icon : línea internacional de cambio de fecha
  • When traveling from Hawaii to Tokyo, you cross the dateline and lose a day.
  • the international dateline
  • cross the dateline

Examples

  • As far as I can tell, the poor bastard never rounded the Cape, or crossed the dateline.

    The Mercy (2018)

  • And they include calendars, clocks, the International Date time, dateline, all of which are quite recent inventions in terms of human history.

  • Bernice, Ben lives in Japan, on the other side of the international dateline.

    Blog text (10)

  • An important feature of warm episodes is the development of enhanced convection along the equator in the vicinity of the dateline.

    Academic text (1997)

  • The international dateline runs along the 180th meridian, marking where each new day starts.

  • Sailing across the dateline can often cause confusion about what day it is.

Synonyms

International Date Line
vsdateline
2 5.1

An invisible line in the middle of the Pacific where the calendar date changes when crossed

is the shorter common name used for the same imaginary line
date line
vsdateline
1 5.7

An imaginary line near the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the calendar date changes when you cross it

is the one-word spelling commonly used for the same north to south line

Surface Forms

dateline singular
datelines plural

Morphology

dateline = date + line (semi-transparent) = date + line

While the compound literally means a 'line' related to 'date', the sense refers to a specific geographic/astronomical boundary (International Date Line), which is a specialized concept beyond simple compounding.

Etymology

Dateline also means the imaginary line on the world map where the calendar day changes. It is literally a date ('day') line, so when you cross it your calendar moves forward or back one day.