ESCAPE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Escape

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/ɪskˈeɪp/ Listen

Escape

verb

(past & past part. escaped; pres. part. escaping)

1.

Run away from confinement. Synonyms: break loose, get away.

2.

Fail to experience. Synonym: miss.

3.

Escape potentially unpleasant consequences; get away with a forbidden action. Synonyms: get away, get by, get off, get out. "I couldn't get out from under these responsibilities"

4.

Be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by. Synonym: elude.

5.

Remove oneself from a familiar environment, usually for pleasure or diversion. Synonym: get away. "The president of the company never manages to get away during the summer"

6.

Flee; take to one's heels; cut and run. Synonyms: break away, bunk, fly the coop, head for the hills, hightail it, lam, run, run away, scarper, scat, take to the woods, turn tail. "The burglars escaped before the police showed up"

7.

Issue or leak, as from a small opening.

noun

1.

The act of escaping physically. Synonym: flight. "The canary escaped from its cage" , "His flight was an indication of his guilt"

2.

An inclination to retreat from unpleasant realities through diversion or fantasy. Synonym: escapism. "His alcohol problem was a form of escapism"

3.

Nonperformance of something distasteful (as by deceit or trickery) that you are supposed to do. Synonyms: dodging, evasion. "That escape from the consequences is possible but unattractive"

4.

An avoidance of danger or difficulty.

5.

A means or way of escaping. "They installed a second hatch as an escape" , "Their escape route"

6.

A plant originally cultivated but now growing wild.

7.

The discharge of a fluid from some container. Synonyms: leak, leakage, outflow. "He had to clean up the leak"

8.

A valve in a container in which pressure can build up (as a steam boiler); it opens automatically when the pressure reaches a dangerous level. Synonyms: escape cock, escape valve, relief valve, safety valve.

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escape mechanism

escape velocity

WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Escape" Quotes from Famous Books

... "wicked old witch." The Bearnais had been biding his time—"crouching to spring": but that slap in the face set him on fire. He could no longer wait for the right moment. He decided to make the first moment the right one. His quick brain mapped out a plan of escape in which the sole flaw was that he must leave behind his brilliant bride. With eight or ten of his greatest, most loyal gentlemen, he arranged to hunt in the forest of Senlis; and he had shown himself so biddable, so boyish, that at first ...

— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... of the little building, rifle at the ready, only to see a scrambling figure, bent over, endeavoring to reach the top of the dam, where the smooth roadway ran from side to side of the great gorge. That way lay no escape. The sentry was across yonder, and would soon return. This way, toward the east, a fugitive must go if he would seek any point of emergence ...

— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... injure any person, it would be impossible for thee to escape," replied Friend Hopper; "for thou art a hundred and twenty miles from the Capes, with hundreds of people on the wharf ...

— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... and one of them, a spirited young Highlander, Mr McIvor, put a brace of pistols into his belt and followed me on deck. I tried to escape being seen by the captain, but he caught sight of me, I was sure, though I stooped down and kept close to the ...

— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... deposed to have heard it shriek at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death, said that it was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape—crept out into the back-yard—tried to scale the wall—fallen back exhausted, and been found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; ...

— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

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