Lineage

How to spell lineage

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce lineage

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lineage mean?

1. nounThe line of descent or ancestry from which a person, family, or breed is descended.

Lineage in a sentence

• She traced her lineage back through five generations of farmers.

• The breeder kept careful records of each dog's lineage.

Where does lineage come from?

Language of origin: French

This word reaches English through Old French, where lignage meant 'descent' or 'family line', built on ligne, meaning 'line'. That French ligne traces back to the Latin linea, originally 'a linen thread' and then by extension any straight line, since a tightly stretched flax thread was used to mark a straight edge. From the idea of a continuous line came the figurative sense of a line of descent running from ancestor to descendant. English adopted the word in the 1300s, and the spelling kept the older French shape, which is why we write 'line' plus 'age' rather than spelling it the way it sounds. The same linea root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'line', 'linear', and even 'linen', the cloth that gave us the word in the first place.

How the word is built

• line (from Latin linea: a line, descent)
• -age (noun suffix denoting a collection or condition)