the.com/clothesline
a solar-powered dryer disguised as a backyard string nobody bothers to question.
means A length of rope or wire strung between two points on which wet laundry is hung outdoors to dry in the air and sun.
from A plain English compound, simply "clothes" plus "line," the same straightforward word-welding that gives us "clothespin" and "washline." "Clothes" traces back to Old English "clath" (cloth, garment), while "line" descends through Old English "line" from Latin "linea" — literally a thread of linen, since flax-linen was the original stuff of cords. So buried in the word is an old truth: the line itself was once made of the very fiber it now holds up to dry. The figurative "clothesline" of football and wrestling — an outstretched arm that fells a runner like laundry off a snapped rope — is a 20th-century American sports borrowing.
- banned
- Many US neighborhoods outlawed them as eyesores
- right to dry
- States passed laws protecting clothesline use
- sun bleach
- Sunlight naturally whitens and disinfects fabric
- wrestling move
- A brutal arm-across-throat takedown borrows the name
- energy free
- Replaces a dryer eating 6% of home electricity
clothesline catch — wrestling move where a wrestler extends their arm across opponent's neck while running, used in wwe and other promotions
clothesline in baseball — when a batter hits a line drive that travels in a nearly horizontal trajectory close to the ground