beeline

• bee-line

From bee +‎ line, due to the belief that a bee returns to its hive in a straight course, originally an Americanism.^[1]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈbiːlaɪn/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːlaɪn

beeline (plural beelines)

1. 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.

2. (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.

beeline (third-person singular simple present beelines, present participle beelining, simple past and past participle beelined)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To travel in a straight line, ignoring established paths of travel.
   • 2002, Tim Cockey, Hearse of a Different Color‎, Hachette Books, →ISBN:

     A uniformed policeman came off the elevator and beelined for the nurse's station. I beelined into the stairwell. I wasn't in the mood for chatting with the police.

   • 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.

• as the crow flies
• like a martin to his gourd