arm's length
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.90 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A distance approximately equal to the length of a human's arm.
noun
A position not suggesting or inviting intimacy.
noun
A condition of independence and parity for parties to a transaction.
adj
adj
Independent, but related.
Example Sentences
- "I need about ten arm's lengths of yarn."
- "She remained at arm's length though we worked together for many years."
- "The police work at arm's length from the army."
- ""Government should have an arms-length relationship with the railway," it adds."
- "In any viable scenario of renationalisation, the idea was always to ensure that the railways were at arm's length from the Department, since it was recognised that allowing civil servants to run the show is always a bad idea."
- "Kate Bingham's success is powerful validation of what has been RAIL 's opinion on this key question for many months now: that we must have a new arm's length body, similar to the Vaccine Task Force, to strategically plan and organise our railways... and quickly too."