Naut. [SOUNDING vbl. sb.2] A line used in sounding the depth of water; also, line or other material forming this.
In early use distinguished from the deep sea line: see DEEP SEA.
1336. Acc. Exch. K. R. 19/31 m. 4, In .j. petra cordis de canabo … pro vno soundynglyne inde faciendo.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., ix. 44. Fetch the Sounding line, this is bigger than the Dipsie line. [Hence in Phillips, etc.]
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer., II. (1783), I. 104. As his course lay through seas which had not formerly been visited, the sounding-line, or instruments for observation, were continually in his hands.
1845. Gosse, Ocean, Introd. (1849), 6. In many places no length of sounding line has yet been able to reach the bottom.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea (Low), xiii. § 567. His sounding-line was an iron wire more than eleven miles in length.
