at arm's length

Idioms and Phrases

At a distance, avoiding intimacy or familiarity, as in Bill hated seeing his colleagues outside the office, preferring to keep all of them at arm's length , or She was friendly only when he was safely at arm's length . Now often used with the verb keep , this term for distancing oneself from a person, organization, or issue originated as at arm's end but developed its current form by the mid-1600s.