beeline

See also: bee-line

English edit

WOTD – 15 August 2015

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

beeline (plural beelines)

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^[1]:
  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.
(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.

straight course, ignoring established paths of travel

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

(transitive, intransitive) To travel in a straight line, ignoring established paths of travel.
- 2002, Tim Cockey, Hearse of a Different Color‎^[2], 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^[3], →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.