Literary notes about Lineament (AI summary)
The term "lineament" is frequently employed to evoke both the physical contours of a face and the deeper emotional or symbolic traits it may reveal. Authors use it to describe the precise features that mark a character’s inner state, as when greed, suffering, or passion is inscribed on every detail of a visage ([1], [2]). In other passages, the word underscores the transformation or hidden qualities of a character—be it the unyielding strength in every line or the subtle trace of cruelty or tenderness ([3], [4], [5]). Its use thus bridges the literal outline of the face with metaphorical elements of character, rendering a subject’s emotional or moral essence visible and profound ([6], [7]).
- Don Miguel, greed written in every lineament, leaned forward on his chair, listening eagerly.
— from Boys of the Light Brigade: A Story of Spain and the Peninsular War by Herbert Strang - Traces of suffering were visible in every lineament, but they seemed left by the ground-swell of passion, rather than its deeper ocean waves.
— from Ernest Linwood; or, The Inner Life of the Author by Caroline Lee Hentz - His face was strong, with a firm jaw, a keen eye, and extraordinary firmness in every lineament.
— from Personal Recollections of a CavalrymanWith Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War by James Harvey Kidd - Ali was an old man, with an Arab cast of countenance, on whose every lineament were marked sullenness and cruelty.
— from Mungo Park and the Niger by Joseph Thomson - He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every lineament.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - “Look into my face, and you will see every lineament of your own mirrored there.
— from Daisy Brooks; Or, A Perilous Love by Laura Jean Libbey - That he was cruel could be seen in every lineament of his face.
— from The Courier of the Ozarks by Byron A. (Byron Archibald) Dunn
