chalk-linen.
a. (Of uncertain meaning.)
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a1450 Fysshynge wyth Angle (1883) 15 A good fyne lyne of pak thryde made yn maner of a chalke lyne.
1771 Carroll Papers in Maryland Hist. Mag. 13 173 Pray desier Mr Deards to send me by him two Drumlines... The Chalk lines are too weak & small.
b. ‘A cord rubbed with chalk or similar material, used by artificers for laying down straight lines on the material as a guide for a cutting instrument’ (E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech.).
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1631 J. Winthrop Let. 28 Mar. in Hist. New Eng. (1853) I. 458 Store of shoe-maker's thread and hobnails; chalk and chalk-line.
1825 J. Neal Brother Jonathan I. 55 Eight or ten young women at work; not one..stayed her needle or chalk-line for a single moment.
c. A line drawn with chalk; a straight line; also transferred and figurative. So, in allusive use, to walk a chalk-line: to behave with propriety; to keep undeviatingly to a course of action (U.S. colloquial).
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the world > action or operation > behaviour > good behaviour > behave well [verb (intransitive)] > behave with propriety
civilize1606
to walk a chalk-line1855
to keep the party clean1955
society > communication > indication > marking > a mark > [noun] > line > made with chalk
chalk-line1855
the world > action or operation > continuing > continue doing or keep going in a course of action [verb (intransitive)] > without deviating
to walk a chalk-line1948
1855 T. C. Haliburton Nature & Human Nature II. viii. 324 He returns as straight as a chalk line, or as we say as the crow flies.
1859 H. E. Taliaferro Fisher's River xxii. 246 You can't swindle this boy; he's walked too many chalk-lines fur that.
1887 in Amer. Speech (1950) 25 31/2 The owners of those dives also knew they would have to close up shop and walk the chalk-line once the police took the matter in hand.
1904 C. Martyn Fables of Hotel Profession 26 Everybody had to walk a Chalk Line or Get Out.
1948 Time 2 Aug. 12/2 Many of whom deny that they are Communists but all of whom walk the Communist chalk line.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online September 2019).
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