rectilinearness

Noun

rectilinearness (uncountable)

1. The condition of being rectilinear.
   • And there is a stubbornness of will, an unbending rectilinearness of march, like that of the Norwegian Leming, which cannot comprehend that perils which press from one quarter are not to be met by the same weapons and the same attitude which is appropriate against those which menace from an...1852 July 1, W. C. Taylor, “Sir Robert Peel and his Policy: Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel”, in The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, volume II, number I, John Chapman, page 225
   • Herzen’s daughter was brought up in the most inconsolable positivism and her soul could not bear the “rectilinearness of phenomena.” The author concludes: “This means she simply died of ‘cold darkness and boredom,’ with, so to speak, animal and unaccountable suffering, life simply became stifling...1967, Konstantin Mochulsky, quoting Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael A. Minihan, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 546