life line
- noun
- /ˈlaɪf laɪn/
- Archaic
- This is your life line
Examples
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That's not your life line.
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You really do have a lovely life line.
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Have I a long life line?
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Iook how short my life line is.
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Ladies and gentlemen, before my life line, according to him is two minutes long, which means we've got to the end of the program.
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Many people believe that the length of your life line can reveal how long you will live.
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During her palm reading, the fortune teller examined my life line closely to predict my future.
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He asked the palm reader if a short life line meant he would have a short life.
Synonyms
A line on the hand that people say shows how long you will live
A crease on the palm that some people say shows how long someone will live
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is partly compositional: combining 'life' (span of existence) with 'line' (a crease) points toward a line that relates to life, so a learner could infer it denotes a life-related line. However, the specific palmistry sense (a crease on the palm said to indicate duration of life) depends on cultural/domain knowledge about reading palm lines and is not fully predictable from the words alone.
Etymology
Life line comes from palm reading. The words life and line refer to a curved mark on the palm that palm readers would trace to guess 'how long someone will live', so the phrase means a crease people thought showed a person's length of life.