a. [f. LINE sb.2 + -Y1.]
1. Of the nature of or resembling a line or streak, thin, meager.
1807. Opie, in Lect. Paint. (Bohn, 1848), 254. Somewhat that is stiff, crude, ‘liney,’ and harsh in respect to anatomy.
1826. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. 207. The narrow liny clouds, which a few minutes ago lay like soft vapoury streaks along the horizon.
1830. Fraser’s Mag., I. 146. The architraves … are cut away, and made to look weak and liny.
1855. Ecclesiologist, XVI. 365. It looks thin, ‘liney,’ and attenuated.
1874. T. Hardy, Far fr. Madding Crowd, viii. Shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light.
2. Full of lines, marked with lines.
1817. Keats, Sleep & Poetry, 364. Then there rose to view a fane Of liny marble.
1835. T. Walker, Original, vi. (1887), 65. The brooding affections of the mind … make the countenance fallen, pale, and liny.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, iii. § 22. 90. The leaf being … rendered liny by bold markings of its ribs.
1872. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., 356/2. To give the grounding a liney appearance.
