a bird's eye view

1. A view looking down at an object or area from a high elevation. As much as I'd love to go to the observation deck of the Empire State Building and see New York City from a bird's eye view, I'm afraid that my acrophobia will prevent me from enjoying the experience.

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.

a bird's eye view

the appearance of something seen from above The large painting offers a bird's eye view that shows the layout of the ancient city.

Usage notes: sometimes used to show how an animal's view is different: A basement window gives you a dog's eye view of the world - all you see is the bottom of the fire hydrant and passing feet on the sidewalk.

a bird's eye view

a view from a very high place which allows you to see a large area We had a bird's eye view of the old town from the top of the city walls.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Ashwin	-	Indian, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada
Rusul	-	Arabic
Mathilde	ma-TEELD (French), mah:-TIL-də (Dutch)	French, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish
Najib	-	Arabic
Celino	che-LEE-no (Italian), the-LEE-no (Spanish), se-LEE-no (Latin American Spanish)	Italian (Rare), Spanish (Rare)
Jenny	['dʒeni]