at arm's length

1. At a distance, avoiding intimacy or familiarity, as in Bill hated seeing his colleagues outside the office, preferring to keep all of them at arm's length, or She was friendly only when he was safely at arm's length. Now often used with the verb keep, this term for distancing oneself from a person, organization, or issue originated as at arm's end but developed its current form by the mid-1600s.

Example Sentences

Inhabiting Timothy’s vulnerability made Crudup think about his own early years, when he tried to establish himself while keeping the machinery of stardom at arm’s length.

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Yet by keeping them at arm’s length, Schumer and Jeffries have stoked anger in their own backyard, where some constituents describe them as cocooned by Washington’s donor class.

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“When a relationship exists where a company exercises significant influence over its customer, there is a risk that transactions may not be conducted at arm’s length,” they wrote.

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Australia kept England at arm's length thereafter, easing their way to victory in the first meeting between the sides since the 2017 World Cup final.

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But it doesn’t have to persist—states can enact laws and policies to regulate the vendors, ban gifts and donations, and force election administrators to keep vendors at arm’s length.

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