through line

noun

variants or throughline

ˈthrü-ˌlīn 

or less commonly through-line

: a common or consistent element or theme shared by items in a series or by parts of a whole

But Kent's latest nonetheless reveals a fascinating through line in her work, which centers on, as she puts it, "disrespect for the feminine"—and the inciting power of female rage.

—Rachel Handler

Vang was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and came to the United States in the late 1980s. For him and his family, food was the throughline keeping them connected to their culture, wherever they were.

—Sharyn Jackson

Perverse moments like these are a throughline in Decker's work. The Texas native specializes in "bad" desires—awkward wants that tend to go unexpressed, or which otherwise seem too compromising to confess even to oneself.

—K. Austin Collins

Unlike Tokyo's great shopping thoroughfares, which have a certain logical through-line (if not aesthetic, at least socioeconomic), Osaka's arcades are mismatched, high-low jumbles of retail diversions.

—Simon Dumenco

Examples of through line in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That intimacy between viewer and creator is a through line in both horror movies and on platforms such as YouTube. —Kayla Hayempour, NBC news, 1 June 2026

That wasn’t its only subject; comedy and power and misogyny and creativity and intergenerational conflict and work ethic and, especially in its last few seasons, the debased state of the entertainment industry were all richly explored through lines. —Judy Berman, Time, 29 May 2026

The through line in all of it is the same. —Harlem Capital, Forbes.com, 28 May 2026

Where the Luce truly raises eyebrows, though, is its overall exterior styling, which has, at best, a very tenuous through line to the marque’s design DNA. —Viju Mathew, Robb Report, 25 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1936, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for through line

• affine
• airline
• align
• aline
• assign
• baseline
• beamline
• benign
• bloodline
• bovine
• brucine
• byline