READ BETWEEN THE LINES • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Read between the lines

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/rɛd bɪtwˈin ðə laɪnz/ Listen

verb

Read v. i. (past & past part. read; pres. part. reading)

To give advice or counsel. (Obs.)

To tell; to declare. (Obs.)

To perform the act of reading; to peruse, or to go over and utter aloud, the words of a book or other like document. "So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense."

To study by reading; as, he read for the bar.

To learn by reading. "I have read of an Eastern king who put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence."

To appear in writing or print; to be expressed by, or consist of, certain words or characters; as, the passage reads thus in the early manuscripts.

To produce a certain effect when read; as, that sentence reads queerly.

To read between the lines, to infer something different from what is plainly indicated; to detect the real meaning as distinguished from the apparent meaning.

See images of 'Read between the lines'

Etymology of 'Read between the lines'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Read between the lines" Quotes from Famous Books

... other person who took those criticisms in the right spirit was Mother Dryfoos—I've just been bolstering up the Dryfoos family. She had them read to her by Mrs. Mandel, and she understood them to be all the most flattering prophecies of success. Well, I didn't read between the lines to that extent, quite; but I saw that they were going to help us, if there was anything in us, more than anything that could have been done. And there was something in us! I tell you, March, that ...

— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... duck-pond, or merely lying flat on his back in the sunshine,—he was a being transformed. For he had in him much of the primitive man and his whole nature responded to the "call of the wild." But you who know his prairie-tales must have read between the lines,—for who, unless he loved the "honk" of the wild geese, could write, "to those who have heard it year by year it is the sweetest, most insistent of music. It is the spirit of the wild, of magnificent distances, ...

— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... me. Of course it was a most improper sort of letter to write considering the circumstances. It pained Mrs. Fyne to discover how thoroughly she had been misunderstood. But what is written is not all. It's what my wife could read between the lines. She says that the girl is really ...

— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... very quietly, of Thorne's visit, his proposal, and her rejection of it; just the bare facts, without comment or elaboration. But Mrs. Mason had a mother's insight and could read between the lines; she did not harass her daughter with many words, even of approval; or with questions; she simply drew the sweet, young face down to her bosom a moment, and held it there with tender kisses. Nor did Berkeley, ...

— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... a gay social life was eminently fitting, and how often we may read between the lines of old letters and diaries the story of such festive occasions. For instance, scan the records of the life of Eliza Pinckney, and her beautiful daughter, one of the belles of Charleston, and note such bits of information as ...

— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

More quotes...