handline
handline noun: a single fishing line without a rod, but usually attached to a reel, held in the hands.
Noun
handline (plural handlines)
- A single fishing line without a rod, but usually attached to a reel, held in the hands.
- A firefighting hose held and directed by a team of people.
Verb
handline (third-person singular simple present handlines, present participle handlining, simple past and past participle handlined)
- To fish with a single fishing line held in the hands.
- But they remember fishing into the winter. “Christ,” says Bernard, “out there handlining in the snow. You’d come in numb. We didn’t have these modern clothes. Just wool. Or if they had them, we didn’t know.” “No,” said Leonard, “they weren’t there.” “Christ, it was cold.” “We didn’t have any...1997, Mark Kurlansky, “Prologue: Sentry on the Headlands (So Close to Ireland)”, in Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, Walker, →ISBN
Forms of handline
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | handlines |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | handlines |
| present participle | handlining |
| past participle | handlined |
| past | handlined |
Origin of handline
From hand + line.
Words formed from handline
Questions about handline
- What does handline mean?
- Handline means a single fishing line without a rod, but usually attached to a reel, held in the hands.
- What part of speech is handline?
- Handline can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of handline?
- The plural of handline is handlines.
Words near handline in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: handline (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-handline.wav.
Cite this entry: “handline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.