lineament

lin•e•a•ment (LIN-ee-uh-muhnt)  n
often used in the plural

Definition:
1. a distinctive shape, contour, or line, especially of the face
2. a definitive or characteristic feature3. any long natural feature on the surface of the earth, such as a fault, esp as revealed by aerial photography (geology) 

lineamental adjective

Origin:
early 15c.;  from M.Fr. lineament, from L. lineamentum "contour, outline," from lineare "to reduce to a straight line," from linea;  figurative sense of "a characteristic" is attested from 1630s

Related:
Related Words: line, align, delineate; lineage, linear

Sentence Examples:
• A gleam of exultation shot across the darkly-painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced the route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward, the light and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the curvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of Heyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing master was concealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark lines, in the intermediate space. - The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

• At the second fireplace sat his son, and, though a mere boy, the lineaments of his father marked the youth's face with a painful exactness. - The Fortunes Of Glencore, Charles James Lever

• She has been such as she now appears to be for these last five and twenty years; her figure as you see, rather en-bon point, is friendly to the ravages of time, and every lineament of age is artfully filled up by an expert fille de chambre, whose time has been employed at the toilette of a celebrated devotee in Paris. - Real Life in London, Pierce Egan


Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

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