How to Use rectilinear in a Sentence

rectilinear

adjective
  • The eggnog ice cream was sold in a rectilinear form known as a brick.
    Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun, 13 Dec. 2022
  • The blacksmith was a lean man with a sad, rectilinear face and hair the color of clapboard.
    Elizabeth McCracken, Harpers Magazine, 5 Jan. 2021
  • Its haul road—which runs from the De Long Mountains to the port—was the only rectilinear imposition across the vast landscape.
    Emily Witt, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2022
  • From 10 paces away, the Z Proto's grille appears to be a large, rectilinear opening much like that of the outgoing model.
    Steve Siler, Car and Driver, 3 Nov. 2020
  • There’s a live-edge bar, whole swirly wall planks, overhead boards, rectilinear stalactites dangling in a fringe along the windows.
    BostonGlobe.com, 18 Sep. 2019
  • Freud’s body, for instance, is conscribed by a rectilinear structure built around (or extending out of) a bed’s headboard.
    Sophie Madeline Dess, The Atlantic, 25 Mar. 2021
  • Floor-to-ceiling windows that span the length of the rectilinear house are almost all north-facing, reducing direct sun exposure (and therefore heat) from the south.
    Laurel Benedum, ELLE Decor, 21 Apr. 2020
  • In the Warped Grid Illusion, the high spatial frequencies arise from the rectilinear grid, and the low spatial frequencies from the designs formed by cobblestones of like colors.
    Scientific American, 15 Feb. 2022
  • When the passenger elevator birthed the high-rise office building, the rectilinear matrix flowed up toward the clouds.
    Justin Davidson, Curbed, 26 Apr. 2021
  • When rating photos in a circle-themed mission, the buttons are circular, while the square mission has a rectilinear motif.
    Joseph Flaherty, WIRED, 13 Aug. 2014
  • The CubeSats's goal is to enter an elongated orbit, which is a near rectilinear halo orbit, around the moon for at least six months for research purposes.
    Megan Marples, CNN, 6 July 2022
  • Otherwise, rectilinear geometry unites the home and the step-down.
    Kathryn O’Shea-Evans, WSJ, 9 Sep. 2022
  • Seemingly hauled up en masse, the forms are wired together and slapped onto a rectilinear steel support, like writhing refugees from a maritime disaster.
    Julia Couzens, sacbee, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Neither of those versions made it to reality: all that’s left of Childs’ attempts at flair is a rectilinear base striated in limestone and dimpled on each facade.
    Justin Davidson, Daily Intelligencer, 18 Apr. 2018
  • An apple-green glass guardrail on the balcony and three glass cubes used as outdoor lighting punctuate the rectilinear parameters with color.
    Nancy Keates, WSJ, 11 July 2018
  • And they were arranged along streets that meandered a bit but were fairly conventional in their rectilinear layout.
    John Kelly, Washington Post, 12 Nov. 2022
  • Sarah Crowner, known over the last decade for stitching together cutout shapes of plain or painted canvas to form rectilinear abstract paintings, is sticking to first principles.
    Roberta Smith, Martha Schwendener and Will Heinrich, New York Times, 15 Mar. 2018
  • Most of the 10-story building is sheathed in glass windows arranged in a strict rectilinear pattern — a very contemporary look — but the ground floor is more sinuous, which evokes off a midcentury vibe.
    Stefanie Waldek, Travel + Leisure, 22 Nov. 2021
  • In the public imagination, Fendi is best known for the rectilinear Baguette bag designed by Venturini Fendi.
    Harper's BAZAAR, 23 Feb. 2021
  • The circa 1870s brick facade remains intact, but behind it the home explodes into a three-story rectilinear white form punctuated by a line of windows.
    Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2022
  • Here, the kitchen features a clean, rectilinear design scheme, consisting of a wall of white cabinetry and white backsplash tiling with black grouting, all of which is offset against the grey-colored countertop and open wooden shelving.
    Kimberley Mok, Treehugger, 19 July 2023
  • Trump, unlike his predecessor, unlike any American who had run for the White House or held any office anywhere, admired Putin—the strong hand of the state imposing an almost rectilinear order on the chaos of the natural world.
    Peter Savodnik, The Hive, 7 Mar. 2017
  • Their rectilinear structures tempted children and adults alike, whether to squish their bodies between elements of a wall progression, climb inside a channel piece, or crouch beneath a single stack.
    Leslie Jamison, The Atlantic, 31 Aug. 2020
  • Embrace curves: Many environmental psychology experts say that sharp, right angles are more stimulating to the brain than round shapes or ovals, and that having too many rectilinear forms in a room can stress us out.
    Megan Buerger, Washington Post, 28 Aug. 2019
  • The wooden sculpture, glossy with apple-green paint, rests on the floor like a Brobdingnagian jigsaw puzzle, fragmented into thirteen rectilinear sections—a jazzy riff on the modernist grid.
    The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2017
  • The new structure, which almost doubles the overall exhibition area, is a series of interlinked, rectilinear pavilions cascading down a hill and over a freeway toward the harbor.
    Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 14 Mar. 2023
  • Those angled houses --along Bayou Road, for example -- were built on parcels aligned with old French long-lot plantations, which were later superimposed by a rectilinear urban grid.
    Richard Campanella, NOLA.com, 10 May 2017
  • The floor is made with hard-wearing grey and blue linoleum, overlaid with triangular designs, creating a visual contrast with the warmly textured, rectilinear wooden structure.
    Kimberley Mok, Treehugger, 13 Mar. 2023
  • The rectilinear steel-and-concrete Empire State Building, icon of 20th-century construction, will be history.
    Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 13 May 2020
  • Furniture and objects were typically made from readily available wood, with rectilinear forms, and finished only with oils or paint.
    Diana Budds, Curbed, 21 June 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rectilinear.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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