party line
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Puzzle #145 · October 24, 2025
The party line is policies or principles of a political party.
Maintaining agreement and support for those principles, particularly when under pressure or where common sense may suggest otherwise, is known as holding (or toeing) the party line.
A party line was also a single telephone line shared by multiple households, especially in rural America as it was cheaper and easier to setup. On a party line, one could listen to a neighbor's phone calls by picking up one's one receiver.
Maintaining agreement and support for those principles, particularly when under pressure or where common sense may suggest otherwise, is known as holding (or toeing) the party line.
A party line was also a single telephone line shared by multiple households, especially in rural America as it was cheaper and easier to setup. On a party line, one could listen to a neighbor's phone calls by picking up one's one receiver.
Puzzle Appearances
The expression party line has appeared in 2 puzzles:
- Puzzle #104 on September 13, 2025
- Puzzle #145 on October 24, 2025
Rate of Appearance in English Language Print
Google's Ngram project shows how often a pair of words has appeared in print every year since the 1800's.
Data from Google Books Ngram Viewer. Licensed under CC BY 3.0.
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