Line (heraldry)
In Scotland, varied lines of partition are often used to modify a bordure (or sometimes another ordinary) to difference the arms of a cadet from the chief of the house.
An ordinary dancetty is similar, but with peaks matching troughs, so that the width is constant; it also typically has fewer points than indented.
[2] Dentilly is a modern invention, similar to indented, but with one of the sides of the points perpendicular and the other angled, as in a sawtooth wave.
[8] The arms of Alaric John Martin Woodrow show an example of barry dancetty each point double barbed, used to represent a line of fir trees as a play on the surname.
[11] It is difficult to know whether to characterise the "wall-like extremity with five merlons and four embrasures" in the arms of the Kurgan Oblast in Russia as a divided field or a charge.
[1] The arms of Ernest John Altobello show a chevron with the upper edge grady (this is identical in appearance to indented) "and ensigned of a tower Argent".
[14] The field of the arms of the 40th Finance Battalion of the United States Army is blazoned per fess wavy (in the manner of a Taeguk).
[16] The arms of James Hill show an example of barrulets wavy crested to the sinister on the upper edge.
The Blount family of Worcestershire, England, whose members held the titles of Baron Mountjoy and two baronetcies, bore Barry nebuly of six or and sable.
These lines consist of a series of circular arcs curving in the same direction, meeting at angles, forming points outward (engrailed) or inward (invected).
The arms of the Pretoria Philatelic Society show a chief engrailed and couped, having the appearance of the edge of a perforated postage stamp.
A very unusual occurrence of embattled occurs in the arms of the 136th Military Police Battalion of the United States Army: Sable, a fesse enhanced and embattled Or, overall a magnifying glass palewise rim Argent (Silver Gray), the glass surmounting and enlarging the middle crenel between two merlons, the handle Gules edged of the second bearing a mullet Argent.
James Parker cites the arms of Christopher Draisfield: "Gules, a chevron raguly of two bastons couped at the top argent."
The arms of Zodwa Special School for Severely Mentally Handicapped Children show a chevron dovetailed, the peak ensigned with a potent issuant.
[28] The arms of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons[29] have a bordure emblazoned "dentate", although this appears to be quite similar to dovetailed.
[12] The arms of Laerskool Bosveld in South Africa have a field Per chevron embowed trefly, Azure and Argent.
(It is debatable what the distinction is between such lines, and examples such as the arms of Bierbaum am Auersbach,[36] a town in Styria, in which three pears grow from a pall.)
The South African Bureau of Heraldry has developed the line of partition serpentine (which has also been called ondoyant), which is rather like wavy, but with only one "wave", one complete cycle of a sine wave; the serpentine in the arms of the Mtubatuba Primary School is defined as "dexter to chief and sinister to base".
Broad fitchy couped is a line of South-African origin similar in appearance to a mine-dump or escartelly with sloping sides.
It has sometimes been said that in some reference works flory-counter-flory (and flory) is treated like a line of partition, even though strictly speaking it is not – though it has been used for centuries that way in the royal arms of Scotland blazoning the double tressure (Public Register of Arms, Lyon Court, Edinburgh) and used by the College of arms in blazoning coats like that of Sutherland of Dunstanburgh Castle (Gules, a chevron flory-counterflory between in chief three mullets and in base a lymphad all or) and is used by the South African Bureau of Heraldry blazoning the coat of Huis Tankotie of the University of Pretoria (Per fess, flory counter-flory, Argent and Azure, in base within the flower an annulet Sable; a bordure counterchanged) and Emmanuel-Opleidingsentrum in the South African Bureau of Heraldry's online database.
