as the crow flies

English

Etymology

From the fact that while crows fly to their source of food, their flight bypasses obstacles like rivers and terrain. Compare beeline.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Adverb

as the crow flies (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) In a straight line distance between two locations, as opposed to the road distance or over land distance.

   It is 15 kilometers as the crow flies.

   • 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 54:

     ʽFire,ʼ said Bill, ʽin the form of a common cowshed, is burnin' about nor'-nor'-east as the crow flies.ʼ

   • 1964 April, “Beyond the Channel: Jugoslavia: New line to Adriatic”, in Modern Railways, page 281:

     The distance from Sarajevo to Ploce is 75 miles as the crow flies, but because of the difficult terrain the new line is 120 miles long.

   • 2020 April 22, Barry Doe, “Disappointed at lack of information on LNER website”, in Rail, page 65:

     Then it told me the distance between the two is 331 miles, which is totally irrelevant as that's as the crow flies and not the 393 miles of the rail route.

Alternative forms

• as the gull flies, as the raven flies

Translations

in a straight line

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 筆直地／笔直地 (bǐzhí de)

• Czech: vzdušnou čarou (cs) f
• Danish: i fugleflugt
• Dutch: hemelsbreed (nl)
• Estonian: linnulennult
• Finnish: linnuntietä
• French: à vol d’oiseau (fr)
• German: Luftlinie (de) f
• Greek: σε ευθεία γραμμή (se eftheía grammí)
• Hebrew: בקו אווירי m (be'kav aviri)
• Hungarian: toronyiránt (hu), légvonalban
• Irish: i bhfoirm líne díreach trasna tíre
• Italian: in linea d'aria
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: i luftlinje, i fugleflukt

• Polish: w linii prostej
• Portuguese: em linha reta
• Russian: напряму́ю (ru) (naprjamúju), по прямо́й (ru) (po prjamój)
• Slovak: vzdušnou čiarou
• Spanish: a vuelo de pájaro
• Swedish: fågelvägen (sv)
• Turkish: kuş uçuşu (tr)

See also

• beeline
• displacement (physics)