Word.ws English Dictionary

throughline

Syllables: through·line/ˈθɹuːlaɪn//ˈθɹuˌlaɪn/

throughline noun: in full through line of action: a theme that runs through the plot of a book, film, or other narrative work, or a series of such related works.

Noun

throughline (plural throughlines)

  1. In full through line of action: a theme that runs through the plot of a book, film, or other narrative work, or a series of such related works.
    • Produced by none other than Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Good Boys again most closely resembles a kind of junior-varsity tryout for that duo's Superbad, down to its modestly affecting emotional through-line: an acceptance of the fact that childhood friendships, forged out of proximity and...2019 August 14, A. A. Dowd, “Good Boys Puts a Tween Spin on the R-rated Teen Comedy, to Mostly Funny Effect”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 04 Mar 2021
    • The Russian rockets fell on Babyn Yar, 80 years after the Nazi atrocities it commemorates; Zelenskiy’s face was enough to hammer home the gravity of the thematic throughline.2022 March 8, Zoe Williams, “Zelenskiy brings down the house with his speech to the Commons”, in The Guardian
  2. A railway route that passengers can take without needing to change trains.

Forms of throughline

pluralthroughlines
alternative formthrough line
alternative formthrough-line

Origin of throughline

From through (“passing from one side of something to the other”, adjective) + line. Compare Middle English thurghline (“a brail or buntline”).

Questions about throughline

What does throughline mean?
Throughline means in full through line of action: a theme that runs through the plot of a book, film, or other narrative work, or a series of such related works.
What part of speech is throughline?
Throughline is a noun.
How do you pronounce throughline?
Throughline is pronounced /ˈθɹuːlaɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of throughline?
The plural of throughline is throughlines.

Words near throughline in the dictionary

  1. throughgangs
  2. throughgoing
  3. throughgoings
  4. throughlane
  5. throughlanes
  6. throughline
  7. throughlines
  8. throughly
  9. throughness
  10. throughother
  11. throughout

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throughline (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)-Vealhurl-throughline.wav, En-us-throughline.oga.

Cite this entry: “throughline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/throughline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.