as the crow flies

Cultural  

1. The most direct route between two places: “From here to Gold Bar, it's only ten miles as the crow flies, but twenty miles by the winding mountain road.”

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as the crow flies Idioms  

1. In a straight line, by the shortest route, as in It's only a mile as the crow flies, but about three miles by this mountain road. This idiom is based on the fact that crows, very intelligent birds, fly straight to the nearest food supply. [Late 1700s]

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Example Sentences

As the crow flies, Damascus is less than 50 miles from here.

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2024

As the crow flies, it is less than 10 miles from Redcar to Hartlepool, another town that suffered badly from deindustrialization, but with no bridge to connect them, the journey takes 45 minutes by car.

From New York Times • Oct. 2, 2021

As the crow flies — and Google Maps authoritatively confirmed — the coast was just a matter of miles away.

From Washington Post • Jan. 10, 2019

As the crow flies, Minneapolis is only 730 miles from Buffalo.

From Slate • Sep. 22, 2018

"As the crow flies, about five hundred miles."

From The Rover Boys in Alaska or Lost in the Fields of Ice by Richards, Dick