Linear means arranged in a straight line or moving step by step in a single direction. It is often used to describe relationships where one thing changes directly as another thing changes.
It comes from Latin “līneāris,” meaning “made of lines” or “belonging to a line,” from “līnea,” a line or thread. The word kept the idea of straightness and directness.
We often think life should be linear—school, then job, then success—but real life is usually anything but a straight line. In math and science, calling something “linear” is a big deal, because linear problems are usually much easier to solve than nonlinear ones.
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