bird's eye view

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Related to bird's eye view: street view

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a bird's eye view

1. A view looking down at an object or area from a high elevation (as if from the perspective of a bird in flight). From up here you can get a bird's eye view of the entire campus. Wow, what a stunning bird's eye view of Los Angeles. Hey, stand on the roof of that building with your camera—you'll get a bird's eye view of our lead actress walking down the street.

2. A consideration of a problem or situation from a comprehensive perspective. In order to determine why the company was headed towards a fiscal disaster, the CFO had to take a step back and get a bird's eye view of the situation so he could locate the cause of the problem. I've hired a consulting firm to get a bird's eye view of our company and see where we can cut costs without causing too much disruption otherwise. Hold on, you're too close to this situation. If you could somehow see a bird's eye view of it all, I think you'd really get some perspective.

bird's eye view

An overview, as in This balcony gives us a bird's eye view of the town, or This course gives you a bird's eye view of history-from Eolithic man to the Gulf War in one semester . This expression can be used literally, for a panoramic view such as a bird might see, as well as figuratively. [c. 1600]

—'s-eye view

a view from the position or standpoint of the person or thing specified.

The most common versions of this phrase are bird's-eye view (see bird) and worm's-eye view (see worm).

1982 Ian Hamilton Robert Lowell There is a kind of double vision: the child's eye view judged and interpreted by the ironical narrator.

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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