rectilinearness

English

Etymology

rectilinear +‎ -ness

Noun

rectilinearness (uncountable)

1. The condition of being rectilinear.
   • 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:

     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 opposite direction;

   • 1967, Konstantin Mochulsky, quoting Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael A. Minihan, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 546:

     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 for her, just as if there were not enough air. . . .”

   • 2005, John Seelye, Jane Eyre’s American Daughters: From The Wide, Wide World to Anne of Green Gables: A Study of Marginalized Maidens and What They Mean, Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., →ISBN, page 289:

     It is the oldest sister who rules the roost, and Miranda attempts to force Rebecca into the accepted patterns of behavior maintained in the Sawyer home, or “the brick house” as it is called, emphasizing solidarity and rectilinearness, much as Miranda’s routines are called “brick house ways.”