A leading line, called a "range" in the United States, is a line formed by a pair of marks, which are generally man-made, that are used in position fixing and navigation, to indicate a safe passage through a shallow or dangerous channel. If lighted the marks are called "leading lights" in British English and "range lights" in the United States.
Leading lights are often used in the entrances to harbours or estuaries where there are hazards close to a deep channel.
Also, in art, Leading Lines are lines that guide your eye through the painting or photograph.
Famous quotes containing the words leading and/or line:
“It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.... Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament—are its leading features.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“When all this is over, you know what I’m going to do? I’m gonna get married, gonna have about six kids. I’ll line ‘em up against the wall and tell them what it was like here in Burma. If they don’t cry, I’ll beat the hell out of ‘em.”
—Samuel Fuller, U.S. screenwriter, and Milton Sperling. Samuel Fuller. Barney, Merrill’s Marauders (1962)