beeline
See also: bee-line
English
WOTD – 15 August 2015
Alternative forms
Etymology
From bee + line, due to the belief that a bee returns to its hive in a straight course, originally an Americanism.[1]
Pronunciation
Audio (US) (file) - IPA(key): /ˈbiːlaɪn/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -iːlaɪn
Noun
beeline (plural beelines)
- A very direct or quick path or trip.
- to make / strike a beeline for / to something
- The children made a beeline to the swimming pool.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted their rather lagging footsteps.
- 1998, Cory Doctorow, Super Man and the Bug Out:
- Hershie made a beeline for Thomas's table, not making eye-contact with the others — old-guard activists who still saw him as a tool of the war-machine.
- (mining, chiefly historical) A dynamite fuse made with a small quantity of dynamite powder along its length, so that the spark travels quickly and at a specific known rate.
Translations
straight course, ignoring established paths of travel
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Verb
beeline (third-person singular simple present beelines, present participle beelining, simple past and past participle beelined)
- (transitive, intransitive) To travel in a straight line, ignoring established paths of travel.
- 2009 November 24, Simon Dumenco, “Oriole Kooky”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- Suddenly, a woman beelines to the president, climbs to join him on his platform, there’s no security around to stop her and leans in for a kiss.
References
- “Beeline” in [John Camden Hotten], The Slang Dictionary […], 5th edition, London: Chatto and Windus, 1874, page 80.
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