from afar

from afar

From a (sometimes great) distance. You can't turn the man away, he came from afar, and the only polite thing to do is to offer him a place to stay! I was terrified my first week in the hospital, so I was quite content to watch surgeries from afar in the gallery.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • terrify or an animal out of
  • avoid (someone or something) like the plague
  • avoid like the plague
  • avoid somebody/something like the plague
  • avoid someone/something like the plague
  • a man can die but once
  • give (one) the shove
  • get (one's) walking papers
  • give somebody their walking papers
References in classic literature
239-243) Further yet you went, O far-shooting Apollo, and reached next Cephissus' sweet stream which pours forth its sweet- flowing water from Lilaea, and crossing over it, O worker from afar, you passed many-towered Ocalea and reached grassy Haliartus.
But when Telphusa saw this, she was angry in heart and spoke, saying: `Lord Phoebus, worker from afar, I will speak a word of counsel to your heart, since you are minded to make here a glorious temple to be an oracle for men who will always bring hither perfect hecatombs for you; yet I will speak out, and do you lay up my words in your heart.
Whosoever met the dragoness, the day of doom would sweep him away, until the lord Apollo, who deals death from afar, shot a strong arrow at her.
Collection Of Hesiod Homer and Homerica
But about midnight, when the robbers saw from afar that the lights were out and that all seemed quiet, they began to think that they had been in too great a hurry to run away; and one of them, who was bolder than the rest, went to see what was going on.
Fairy Tales
Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log -- shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware!
Moby Dick LXVIII CXXXIV
The youth's senses were so deadened that his friend's voice sounded from afar and he could scarcely feel the pressure of the corporal's arm.
Red Badge of Courage
She viewed it from afar by stretching out her hand; she stooped to see how it looked near the ground; she considered its effect on the right of her and on the left of her and through one eye at a time.
The Little White Bird
He waited an hour; two hours; three hours; but the Serpent was always there, and even from afar one could see the flash of his red eyes and the column of smoke which rose from his long, pointed tail.
Adventures Of Pinocchio
And So I Watch You From Afar, Fionn Regan and Jape are heading out as part of First Music Contact 's FMC tour.
And So I Watch You From Afar have just been on a coast-to-coast US tour as well as prepping their new album, out next year.
No place like home for best of best
Elegant paintings by Susan Guevara illustrate Voice from Afar: Poems of Peace, a children's picturebook that sometimes deals with somber issues in its impassioned call for an end to armed conflict.
Voice from Afar