skyline means the line that seems to be the boundary of the sky and the ground; the horizon.
skyline is pronounced /ˈskaɪˌlaɪn/.
Why “skyline” is a great word
The horizontal silhouette of buildings or terrain, especially of a city, seen against the sky. From sky + line, first attested in 1824. Unlike a 'horizon,' which is the natural seam where earth meets sky, or a 'silhouette,' which can be any shape cut from a backlit cloth, the skyline is the particular, structured poetry of the man-made against the infinite. It is the jagged geometry of skyscrapers at dusk; the cathedral spire a defiant punctuation mark in a wide, empty sentence; the Appalachian ridge a slow, dark wave against a fading mauve—the collective profile we raise against the void, as if to prove we were here.
Etymology
From sky + line.
noun
- The line that seems to be the boundary of the sky and the ground; the horizon.
- The horizontal silhouette of a city or building against the sky.e.g.“Our arrival at Worcester is heralded by the appearance of the city's cathedral tower, a solid square structure that's dominated the skyline since the 12th century.” — 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 67:
- A path of movement, especially military movement, producing a silhouette above terrain features visible from the location of likely observers.
- A panel on the front page of a newspaper outlining some of the features to be found inside.
- food, often Cincinnati chili, purchased from a Skyline Chili restaurant.e.g.“The only bizarre behavior I've ever observed is his willingness to eat Skyline any time of the day or night.” — 2006 April, Cincinnati Magazine, page 16:
verb
- To outline something against the sky.
- To filter by means of the skyline operator.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- cityscape 59% match — The view of the buildings of a city, usually referring to a pictured landscape. vs skyline →
- skylike 58% match — Resembling the sky or some aspect of it. vs skyline →
- skyland 56% match — The sky. vs skyline →
- skyrise 56% match — A very tall building; a high-rise. vs skyline →
- cloudline 55% match — The line formed by the surface of clouds. vs skyline →
- skytyping 54% match — Synonym of skywriting. vs skyline →
- sightline 53% match — A line between an observer or a piece of optical equipment and an object of interest; line of sight. vs skyline →
- silhouette 53% match — An artistic depiction, often of a person's profile, in the form of an outline without any other visual details, similar to a shadow, made by cutting a piece of black paper, filling in an outline with a solid colour (usually black), etc. vs skyline →