throughline

See also: through line and through-line

English

WOTD – 27 October 2021

Etymology

From through (“passing from one side of something to the other”, adjective) +‎ line.^[1] Compare Middle English thurghline (“a brail or buntline”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈθɹuːlaɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈθɹuˌlaɪn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: through‧line

Noun

throughline (plural throughlines)

1. (narratology) 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. [from early 20th c.]
   • 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 4 March 2021:

     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 convenience, aren't always destined to last.

   • 2022 March 8, Zoe Williams, “Zelenskiy brings down the house with his speech to the Commons”, in The Guardian‎:

     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.

2. (rail transport) A railway route that passengers can take without needing to change trains. [from mid 19th c.]

Alternative forms

• through line
• through-line

Translations

theme that runs through the plot of a narrative work, or a series of such related works

French: fil conducteur (fr) German: durchgängiger Handlungsfaden m

railway route that passengers can take without needing to change trains

References

1. “through line, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2018; “through line, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

• through line on Wikipedia.Wikipedia