noun

• 1A continuum with an infinite number of gradations from one extreme to the other.

  ‘a point along a cline of activity’

  More example sentences

  • ‘In sober fact, just for those moments, the cline between two weathers must I suppose have been only a couple of hundred yards wide and it just happened to coincide with the track.’
  • ‘Is there evidence of broad or narrow clines in vocal characters?’

  1. 1.1Biology A gradation in one or more characteristics within a species or other taxon, especially between different populations.
     ‘There are numerous examples of population differentiation in body size and development time along latitudinal and elevational clines.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Even within a subspecies, vocalizations vary between sample points in a manner consistent with points along a cline.’
     • ‘In that study, the deflexus characters were reported to change to inflexus, and to coincide with a reduction in flower size along the geographical cline.’
     • ‘Both genetic and morphological clines along the Virginia transect were steeper than along the West Virginia transect.’
     • ‘Here, when there is cooperativity and the repressive activities of u and v are balanced the null clines, being sigmoids, intersect three times.’