Word.ws English Dictionary

enemy line

Syllables: en·e·my lineUK/ˈɛnəmi ˈlaɪn/

enemy line noun: the line of battle of one's enemy.

enemy line: the line of battle of one's enemy
Image: Sgt Midgley, No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

enemy line (plural enemy lines)

  1. The line of battle of one's enemy.
    • The approach at Trafalgar was from the windward, but Vice Admiral [Cuthbert] Collingwood did order his division to deploy in line of bearing so that the enemy line would be cut in many places, and engaged from the other side, or both sides.1996, Nicholas Tracy, “The Battle of Trafalgar”, in Nelson’s Battles: The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail, London: Chatham Publ., →ISBN; republished as Nelson’s Battles: The Triumph of British...
    • Once the two fleets had met, it was then likely, if not inevitable, that only some of the attacking fleet would make it through the enemy line.2008, Sam Willis, “Fleet Tactics”, in Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century: The Art of Sailing Warfare, Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, →ISBN, page 132
  2. (also, figuratively, plural-normally) The boundary of the territory controlled by the enemy.
    • The aviation service can, in two hours, go 100 miles back of enemy lines and return, bringing important information.1917, Aircraft Journal, volume 1, page 17
    • As we Christians serve our Lord and Master in this world, we are living and working behind enemy lines.1994, Charles H. Kraft with Mark White, editors, Behind Enemy Lines: An Advanced Guide to Spiritual Warfare, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Vine Books, →ISBN, page 7

Examples of enemy line in a sentence

  • With this assault they drive back the thin enemy line, pressing forward through the disordered enemy.2011, Sam Koon, “Phalanx and Legion: The ‘Face’ of Punic War Battle”, in Dexter Hoyos, editor, A Companion to the Punic Wars (Blackwell...
  • Within these (fictional) enemy lines—on the model perhaps of the "amity lines" described by Carl Schmitt—there could emerge the following questions: What is an enemy?2003, Gil Anidjar, “De Inimicitia”, in The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy (Cultural Memory in the Present), Stanford, Calif....
  • But there's no good reason to hand him over the victory by staying behind the enemy line after you've been rescued.2010 November 3, Christiana I. Chineme, “The Negative Side of Pain”, in God Didn’t Do It; He Only Signed Off On It: Living a Purposeful...

Forms of enemy line

pluralenemy lines

Questions about enemy line

What does enemy line mean?
Enemy line means the line of battle of one's enemy.
How do you use enemy line in a sentence?
With this assault they drive back the thin enemy line, pressing forward through the disordered enemy.
What part of speech is enemy line?
Enemy line is a noun.
How do you pronounce enemy line?
Enemy line is pronounced /ˈɛnəmi ˈlaɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of enemy line?
The plural of enemy line is enemy lines.

Words near enemy line in the dictionary

  1. enemy action
  2. enemy combatant
  3. enemy combatants
  4. enemy image
  5. enemy images
  6. enemy line
  7. enemy lines
  8. enemy of the people
  9. enemy of the state
  10. enemy-like
  11. enemye

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: enemy line (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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