Liner

How to spell liner

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce liner

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does liner mean?

1. nounA large passenger ship, especially one that runs on a regular long-distance route.
2. nounA protective or removable layer placed inside something to cover or protect its inner surface.
3. nounA pencil or pen used to draw a defining line around the eyes or lips.

Liner in a sentence

• The ocean liner docked in Southampton after the Atlantic crossing.

• She fitted a fresh bin liner before taking out the rubbish.

• She sharpened the eye liner before applying her makeup.

• Thousands of holidaymakers boarded the cruise liner at the port.

• The pool liner had cracked and was letting water seep into the ground.

• A smudge-proof lip liner kept the colour neat all evening.

Where does liner come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Liner is an English formation built from the noun line plus the suffix -er, and line itself reaches back to the Latin linea, meaning a thread, string, or cord made of flax, since linum was the Latin word for flax or linen. From the literal idea of a stretched thread came the geometric and navigational sense of a line, and from there the regular routes that ships sailed. A liner originally meant a vessel that ran on a fixed line, that is, a scheduled shipping route, which is why the great ocean-going passenger ships came to be called liners in the nineteenth century. A quite separate strand of meaning grew from the verb to line, in the sense of covering an inner surface, giving us the liner that is a protective inner layer such as a bin liner. The same -er machinery also produced the cosmetic liner, a pencil used to draw a line.

How the word is built

• line (from Latin linea, a flax thread or cord)
• -er (agent/noun suffix: a thing that lines or follows a line)