- escape
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/i skayp"/, v., escaped, escaping, n., adj.v.i.1. to slip or get away, as from confinement or restraint; gain or regain liberty: to escape from jail.2. to slip away from pursuit or peril; avoid capture, punishment, or any threatened evil.3. to issue from a confining enclosure, as a fluid.4. to slip away; fade: The words escaped from memory.5. Bot. (of an originally cultivated plant) to grow wild.6. (of a rocket, molecule, etc.) to achieve escape velocity.v.t.7. to slip away from or elude (pursuers, captors, etc.): He escaped the police.8. to succeed in avoiding (any threatened or possible danger or evil): She escaped capture.10. to fail to be noticed or recollected by (a person): Her reply escapes me.11. (of a sound or utterance) to slip from or be expressed by (a person, one's lips, etc.) inadvertently.n.12. an act or instance of escaping.13. the fact of having escaped.14. a means of escaping: We used the tunnel as an escape.15. avoidance of reality: She reads mystery stories as an escape.16. leakage, as of water or gas, from a pipe or storage container.17. Bot. a plant that originated in cultivated stock and is now growing wild.18. Physics, Rocketry. the act of achieving escape velocity.19. Computers. a key (frequently labeled ESC) found on microcomputer keyboards and used for any of various functions, as to interrupt a command or move from one part of a program to another.adj.20. for or providing an escape: an escape route.[1250-1300; ME escapen, ascapen < ONF escaper (F échapper) < VL *excappare, v. deriv. (with ex- EX-1) of LL cappa hooded cloak (see CAP1)]Syn. 1. flee, abscond, decamp. 7. dodge, flee, avoid. ESCAPE, ELUDE, EVADE mean to keep free of something. To ESCAPE is to succeed in keeping away from danger, pursuit, observation, etc.: to escape punishment. To ELUDE implies baffling pursuers or slipping through an apparently tight net: The fox eluded the hounds. To EVADE is to turn aside from or go out of reach of a person or thing: to evade the police. See also avoid. 12. flight.
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Universalium. 2010.