line of life
- noun
- Jargon
:
línea de la vida
- The palmist traced the line of life on her palm and smiled reassuringly.
Examples
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Some claim that a short line of life signals an early death, but there is no scientific basis for this.
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She has a long line of life on her palm.
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He studied his line of life, wondering what the future might hold.
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The line of life suggests she will live a long time.
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A long line of life may suggest a longer lifespan, according to palmists.
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She carefully studied the line of life on his palm during the reading.
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According to her interpretation, the line of life shows many years of happiness.
Synonyms
2
8.9
A line on the hand that people say shows how long you will live
A curved line on the palm that some people say shows how long you will live
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'line' (a crease or mark) with 'life' (a person's span of existence): it denotes a line that represents or relates to a person's life, as on the palm. This compositional relation is straightforward and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely infer the intended palmistry meaning.
Etymology
The phrase line of life may come from palm readers. They looked at a long line on the palm and called it the life line, saying it showed the 'length of life', so the phrase now means the crease people think shows how long someone will live.