straight-edgen.
a. A narrow strip of hard wood, steel, or brass, with one edge cut perfectly straight, used to test the accuracy of a plane surface, or as a guide for a cutting instrument.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > equipment for marking out work > [noun] > instrument for checking markings
straight-edge1812
surface plate1822
winding sticks1823
1812 P. Nicholson Mech. Exercises 142 The Straight Edge is a piece of stuff or board made perfectly straight on the edge, in order to make other edges straight.
1815 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 24 A perfectly straight steel ruler, for which we shall adpot [sic] the technical term, by calling it a straight edge.
1879 R. Rouse Sci. & Pract. Geom. 17 A straight-edge or ruler.
1907 J. A. Hodges Elem. Photogr. (ed. 6) 106 An ebonite straight-edge.
b. Printing. (See quot. 1888.)
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society > communication > printing > composing equipment > [noun] > tools
shooting-stick1683
bodkin1846
planer1858
straight-edge1888
persuader1898
1888 C. T. Jacobi Printers' Vocab. 134 Straight-edge, a long wooden or metal stick used for squaring up the pages in a forme in order to obtain correct register in printing.
1890 W. J. Gordon Foundry 188 The machine had now the impression cylinder, the inking rollers, the straight-edge, and the travelling table of 1790.
Draft additions February 2005
Originally U.S. An ascetic or abstinent lifestyle associated with hardcore punk music, adherents of which typically eschew tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and casual sex, and sometimes also animal products; the subculture or style of music associated with such a lifestyle. Cf. straight adj. 6d(b).
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1981 I. MacKaye Straight Edge in ‘Minor Threat’ Compl. Discography (1988) (CD lyrics booklet) I don't even think about speed That's something I just don't need I've got straight edge.]
1983 I. MacKaye in Washington Post 21 Aug. c3/1 Straight edge is just basically an anti-obsession, pro-positive thinking idea.
1991 Twenty Twenty Spring 73/2 There's the West Coast health-and-efficiency ethos—muscle-bound athleticism and the hardcore punk philosophy of straight-edge (no drink or drugs).
1995 Melody Maker 25 Mar. 34/1 ‘All That I Ask of Myself..’ is a lean, streamlined thrash thing which has more to do with straightedge than it does with grebo.
2003 D. Gaines Misfit's Manifesto x. 205 Heroin was seeping into the San Francisco scene, too, but there were also traces of straightedge in the air. An antidrug movement was growing in the hardcore scene.
Draft additions February 2005
Originally U.S. Belonging or relating to this lifestyle, subculture, or style of music; abstinent, ascetic.
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1983 Village Voice (N.Y.) 18 Jan. 31/2 A raging tank on the dance floor, off it he is ‘straight edge’ (no drugs, no hard booze), lives in Astoria, gets good grades.
1994 Los Angeles Times (Electronic ed.) 7 Apr. Both had already been attending gigs featuring straight-edge bands for a couple of years.
2003 M. McCafferty Second Helpings 209 Len is so straight edge that he won't even take Tylenol when he has a headache.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1917; most recently modified version published online September 2021).
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n.1812