Air-line (1813)

1800S

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Another American word coined this year was air-line (1813), first used by John Quincey in Congress. It had the exact same meaning of what we know better as a beeline (1845) [“make a beeline”] or “as the crow flies” – the straightest, shortest path between two direct points.

You might be wondering why such a word would be included in this book when it obviously fell out of use, so let me tell you that – and you have probably just kicked yourself – it is still very much in use.

You see, by the mid-1800s the method for determining new railroad routes was determined by drawing straight lines on a map and taking that path. These airlines became directly associated with fast transportation, often known as air-line railroads (1853).

In fact, the first airlines in the world were train companies. And, so, in the age of flight, the airline terminology was applied to aircraft, thus today’s airlines are direct derivations of the American meaning ‘direct, straight line between two airports’; the shortest route possible was, technically, no longer by rail.

The word did not appear in Webster’s nor the 1911 Concise Oxford Dictionary. Here is the entry from the 1941 Little Oxford Dictionary.

The first printed record of airline in terms of a public air-service – rather than rail – appeared in Melbourne, Australia, from the Argus newspaper in 1914.

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