lineage

plural lineages · alternative linage

1. countableuncountableDescent in a line from a common progenitor; progeny; descending line of offspring or ascending line of parentage.

   Edwards great linage by the mothers ſide, / Fiue hundred yeeres hath helde the ſcepter vp,

   1596, [attributed to William Shakespeare; Thomas Kyd], The Raigne of King Edward the Third: […], London: […] [T. Scarlet] for Cuthbert Burby, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]

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   Theſe Anius Ueres [Marcus Annius Verus, father of Marcus Aurelius] was a lygnage, that auanced them to be deſcẽded [descended] of Numa Pompilio, and of Quintꝰ [Quintus] Curtius the famous Romayn: […]

   1531 March 20 (date written; Gregorian calendar), [Antonio de Guevara], “Of the Byrth and Lygnage of Marke Aurele Anthony Emperour”, in John Bourcher knyghte Lord Barners [i.e., John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners], transl., The Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius Emperour and Eloquent Oratour, London: […] Thomæ Bertheleti […], published 1535, →OCLC, signature [A.iv.], verso

   […]; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my Linage; […]

   1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 95

   Accept this welcome to the Spartan court; / The waſte of nature let the feaſt repair, / Then your high lineage and your names declare: / Say from what ſcepter'd anceſtry ye claim, / Recorded eminent in deathleſs fame?

   1725, Homer, “Book IV”, in [Elijah Fenton], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 146

   To counterbalance those foreign centinels^([sic]), there mounted guard on the other side of the mirror two stout warders of Scottish lineage; […]

   1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume II (The Bride of Lammermoor), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 301

   “Ah, but these hens,” answered the young man,—“these hens of aristocratic lineage would scorn to understand the vulgar language of a barn-yard fowl. I prefer to think—and so would Miss Hepzibah—that they recognize the family tone. For you are a Pyncheon?”

   1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

2. countableuncountablepressA number of lines of text in a column.

   Total newspaper advertising lineage in the North Atlantic region

   1927, William Leonard Crum, Advertising Fluctuations, Seasonal and Cyclical

   1 more example

   These are mere excerpts of longer pieces by Sullivan on Boy George, and I have left out more pieces because of the limits of space. Let me add, the lineage in Sullivan's column devoted to Boy George in 1984 exceeds the lineage in the rest of the Herald devoted to all news of gays and lesbians in the same period of time.

   1981 December 1, Ronnie Allen, “The Herald: Shunning and Insulting”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 4

3. countableuncountableA fee or rate paid per line of text.