Word.ws English Dictionary

at arm's length

at arm's length prepositional phrase: at a distance, away from one's body.

Prepositional phrase

  1. At a distance, away from one's body.
    • Iceland were defiant, as they always are, rigid in defence and lacking in attacking ambition, willing to simply keep England at arm's length and maybe land a counter-punch.2020 September 5, Phil McNulty, “Iceland 0-1 England”, in BBC Sport
  2. (idiomatic) Avoiding a close relationship.
    • She's been keeping me at arm's length all the time. She doesn't want to get involved.

Words formed from at arm's length

Questions about at arm's length

What does at arm's length mean?
At arm's length means at a distance, away from one's body.
What part of speech is at arm's length?
At arm's length is a prepositional phrase.

Words near at arm's length in the dictionary

  1. at any event
  2. at any given moment
  3. at any hand
  4. at any rate
  5. at any risk
  6. at arm's length
  7. at bank
  8. at bar
  9. at bat
  10. at bats
  11. at bay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at arm's length (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-at arm's length.ogg.

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