America in So Many Words

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>>1813 airline

"Airline"/"air line"/"air-line" apparently is/was an Americanism meaning
"straight line"/"bee-line". "On/In an air-line" = "As the crow flies".

E.g., from MoA (Cornell), from 1832: "Usually the mountain is only
discernible, if at all, very early in the day, and though I have often
gazed in its direction, I have hitherto failed in obtaining a good view of
it. In an air line, its summit is distant from Malta at least one hundred
and fifty miles."

Mathews shows a citation from 1813, although the sense is not clear to me
in the quotation.

["Air line" of course was also used to denote a conduit for air (e.g., air
hose). It was also used to denote a telegraph wire running through the air,
as opposed to an underwater (or -- I suppose -- underground) cable.]

-- Doug Wilson