1. Ship-building. An outline recommended by some naval architects for the hull of a vessel as facilitating movement through the waves.
1846. Mechanic’s Mag., 24 Oct., 391. What is the wave line? According to its ingenious author, Mr. J. Scott Russell, it differs from an ordinary ship’s bow … in this, that it is ‘gently hollower than such a bow towards the cut water, and a little rounder towards the greatest breadth.’
1883. J. D. Jerrold Kelly, in Harper’s Mag., Aug., 441/2. The wave-line theories which she [a yacht] illustrated had been adopted long before her day.
2. Physics. The path of a wave of light, sound, etc.; also, the graphic representation of the path.
1888. Rutley, Rock-Forming Min., 30. They are thrown into a wave line through the successive vibration of the other particles from the line of rest. Ibid., 31. The wave-line … is just half a wave-length.
3. Each of the lines or furrows produced by the action of the waves on a sandy beach.
1891. Century Dict.
