Talk:at arm's length

at arm&
This is at + arm's length. [[arm's length]] has figurative senses. DCDuring TALK 20:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep "arm's length" here is defined as an adjective. "at" + an adjective doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me - one can't be "at distant" or "at independent". arm's length, to me, seems like a more recent innovation (as in "an arm's-length transaction") derived from the older at arm's length. A Google ngram appears to back this up - "an arm's-length" doesn't become popular until the 1960s, while "at arm's length" appears to peak around 1900. Smurrayinchester (talk) 21:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, arm's length says it's an adjective, but the idiomatic usexes are both for the prepositional phrase "at arm's length", showing that in fact, arm's length is a noun. The question is, does the idiomatic meaning of arm's length ever occur anywhere other than as the object of the preposition at? —Angr 21:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Arm's length transaction" is common and other nouns can accept "arm's length" as an attributive modifier. "At arm's length" accepts many terms between "at" and "arm's length" in its figurative senses. The "informal measure of distance" sense is used as many nouns in adverbials like "an arm's length apart". It can be used with prepositions like within, to, from, etc.
 * Arm's length is grammatically an NP, which doesn't exclude it functioning attributively and adverbially. It is also be attestably a true adjective. DCDuring TALK 00:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Kept for lack of consensus to delete. bd2412 T 12:39, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

She's been keeping me at arm's length all the time. She doesn't want to get involved.
Since there's an entry for keep at arm's length, this example is not the best to exemplify its use --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)