Word.ws English Dictionary

as the gull flies

as the gull flies adverb: in a straight line distance between two locations, as opposed to the road distance or over land distance.

Adverb

as the gull flies (not comparable)

  1. (Ireland, UK, idiomatic) In a straight line distance between two locations, as opposed to the road distance or over land distance.
    • It is 240 miles as the gull flies.

Synonyms of as the gull flies

Origin of as the gull flies

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

Questions about as the gull flies

What does as the gull flies mean?
As the gull flies means in a straight line distance between two locations, as opposed to the road distance or over land distance.
What part of speech is as the gull flies?
As the gull flies is an adverb.

Words near as the gull flies in the dictionary

  1. as the case may be
  2. as the crow flies
  3. as the day is long
  4. as the fella said
  5. as the fella says
  6. as the gull flies
  7. as the man said
  8. as the man says
  9. as the mountain could not wait upon Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain
  10. as the next
  11. as the next girl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: as the gull flies (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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