v. 1 get away, break out or free, bolt, flee, fly, run away or off, elope, decamp, abscond, steal or slip off or away, take to one's heels, take French leave, disappear, vanish, Brit levant, Colloq take off, clear out, cut and run, duck out, make oneself scarce, do a disappearing act, Brit do a moonlight flit, US vamoose, hightail it, skedaddle, US and Canadian skip (town), fly the coop, cut out; Slang vamoose, Brit do a bunk, bugger off, mizzle off, US and Canadian scram, blow, lam out, take it on the lam, take a (run-out) powder, Chiefly Australian shoot through They escaped when I wasn't looking 2 evade, elude, avoid, dodge They escaped detection for years by hiding in a deserted monastery 3 drain, leak, issue, seep, discharge, emanate Steam was escaping through a hole 4 elude, evade, baffle, stump, mystify, puzzle, be forgotten by, be beyond (someone) How the thing started escapes me for the moment
n. 5 flight, getaway, departure, decampment, bolt, jailbreak, prison-break, Colloq break, break-out The escape was planned for midnight 6 distraction, relief, diversion, recreation He watches westerns as an escape 7 leakage, leaking, seepage, seeping, drainage, draining, leak, discharge, outpouring, outflow, effluence, efflux, effluxion An escape of radioactive waste from the nuclear power station had been reported earlier