escape

i-SKAYP/ɪˈskeɪp/

Verbescapes, escaping, escaped

Noun pluralescapes

18 meanings of escape

Practice

1
get freeverbtransitive or intransitive
To get free from confinement or control, or to get away from those trying to catch you.
Animals can escape if the gate is left open.
Two inmates escaped during the storm and were never found.
UsageWithout an object, usually escape from a place or person: escaped from prison, from the zoo.
Similarflee
2
verbtransitive
To avoid or get away from an unpleasant person or thing.
Hardly anyone in our office escaped the flu this winter.
Refugees who escape the war zone often arrive with nothing.
UsageUsed with a direct object (escape the flu, escape the heat) or an -ing verb (escaped going to jail).
Similarevade, elude, avoid, dodge
3
nouncountable or uncountable
The act of getting clear of a dangerous or unpleasant situation.
Their escape from the flooded valley took nearly three days.
A quick escape from the wreckage saved the entire crew.
UsagePeople make their escape; escape from names the danger, and you can say there was no hope of escape.
Similarflight, getaway
4
leak outverbtransitive or intransitive
To leak or pass out of something, typically accidentally or uncontrollably, said of a gas, liquid, light, or sound.
Clamp the lid down tightly so no steam can escape while the rice cooks.
Firefighters cleared the block after natural gas began escaping from a ruptured main.
UsageWhat it leaves usually follows from or out of: steam escaping from the pan.
Similarleak, seep
Note
The verb behind the noun for a leak: nothing is fleeing a captor, the substance simply gets out where it should not. With sound the meaning turns personal and can take the person as object, for a noise someone makes without intending to: a sigh escaped her, a laugh escaped his lips.
5
nouncountable
Something, such as a vacation, a pastime or a place, that takes your mind off everyday life and its troubles for a while.
The cabin in the mountains offered a quiet escape.
Weekend trips became her favorite escape from city life.
UsageOften an escape from something: an escape from city life or the daily grind.
Similargetaway, retreat, break, respite, vacation
6
go unnoticedverbtransitive
To go unnoticed or unremembered by someone.
Her exact words escape me now, though I recall the tone.
The error escaped the editor during the final review.
UsageThe thing missed is the subject: his name escapes me is a polite way to admit forgetting; it escaped my notice means you did not see it.
Similarelude
Note
Edmund Ludlow's Memoirs show the older shade of evading a search: they escaped the search of the enemy. More often, the thing missed is the subject. The name of the hotel escapes me is a polite way to admit forgetting, and a clue can escape a detective's notice when it goes unseen rather than forgotten.

Less common meanings

7
noununcountable
The keyboard key labeled Esc, pressed to cancel an action or close a window.
She tapped escape to dismiss the warning message.
On most keyboards, escape sits in the top-left corner.
UsageUsed with or without an article: press escape, or press the escape key.
Note
Named for the character it was built to send: the key labeled Esc originally generated control character 27. Today it is bound to canceling actions, closing dialogs and interrupting operations.
8
fugitivenouncountable
A person, animal, or thing that has broken free from confinement; an escapee.
Local birders doubted the record, suspecting the bird was an escape rather than a true wild visitor.
The wallaby seen hopping along the country road turned out to be an escape from a wildlife park.
Similarescapee, runaway, fugitive
Note
Bird-watchers' shorthand for a captive creature now loose. In Gripping Yarns (2000), Bill Oddie asks whether flocks of Waxbills are escapes gone feral or birds spreading from Africa. That question is the point of the word: an escape owes its presence to captivity, not to natural range. It takes a plural freely. The botanists' cultivated runaway is the same idea applied to plants.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
Gripping Yarns was first published in 2000. bloomsbury.com
In Gripping Yarns, Bill Oddie asks whether flocks of waxbills are escapes gone feral or birds spreading from Africa. en.wiktionary.org
9
leakagenouncountable
Leakage or outflow of something such as steam, a liquid, or an electric current passing through faulty insulation.
The hiss revealed an escape of high-pressure steam from the boiler seam.
Faulty wiring caused a steady escape of current that drained the battery overnight.
UsageUsually an escape of gas, steam or current.
Similarleak, leakage, outflow, discharge, emission
10
cancel (computer)verbtransitive or intransitive
To halt a running program or command by pressing a key such as Esc, or a combination of keys.
You can escape the installation by pressing Esc twice.
If the script hangs, escape out of it with Ctrl+C and run it again with the right file name.
UsageOften escape out of a program, menu or command, or simply escape it.
Similarcancel, exit, quit
Note
Closely tied to the Esc key: to escape is to press it, or a key combination, and stop what is running. What it stops is a program, command or dialog box. That sets it apart from the character-quoting verb, whose object is always a piece of text. Both are computing verbs, but one stops a process and the other changes how text is read.
11
treat as textverbtransitive
To make a character be read literally instead of with the special meaning it would normally carry, usually by adding another character before it.
Remember to escape the backslash in the file path.
The script escaped every ampersand in the text.
Note
A programmer's verb: you escape a character so that it stops meaning something special. In the bash shell, a backslash escapes the ampersand. In a Visual Basic string, a double quote is escaped by doubling it. The 1998 URI specification by Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues requires conflicting data to be escaped. XML character data sections let a string skip manual escaping. The object is always text, never a program.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
In Bash, an unquoted backslash escapes an ampersand, preserving its literal value. books.lbunix.com
A double quotation mark inside a Visual Basic string literal is represented by doubling it. learn.microsoft.com
RFC 2396, published in August 1998 and authored by Tim Berners-Lee, Roy Fielding and Larry Masinter, requires escaping data that conflicts with reserved syntax. rfc-editor.org
XML CDATA sections allow blocks of text containing markup characters without individually escaping those characters. w3.org
12
character 27nouncountable
The text character with code 27 (1B in hexadecimal), used to begin control sequences in terminals and devices.
When the terminal receives an escape, it waits for the rest of the control sequence.
Older printers relied on an escape to shift between different font modes.
Note
Underneath the key sits a character, code 27 or 1B in hexadecimal, and it rarely travels alone. Inserted into a datastream, it tells a terminal or printer that the characters that follow are a command, not text. That combination is an escape sequence. The verb for quoting characters works the other way round: it makes special characters ordinary, while this one makes ordinary characters special.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
The ESC character has decimal code 27, hexadecimal 1B. emtec.com
ESC introduces terminal escape sequences, causing following characters to be interpreted as part of a control sequence. vt100.net
In PCL printers, ESC causes subsequent characters to be interpreted as a printer command rather than printable data. developers.hp.com
13
snookernouncountable
In snooker, a successful shot played to reach the target ball after being snookered behind another ball.
The frame turned on a brilliant escape from a tricky snooker.
He attempted an escape off the side cushion but clipped the wrong ball.
Note
Snooker's word for getting out of trouble. When a player is snookered, every legal target ball is wholly or partly blocked by a ball that may not be hit first. The escape is the shot that still makes legal contact, often off one or more cushions. Failing to make contact draws a penalty, so an escape is judged by contact, not by potting. One brilliant escape can turn a frame.
14
wild plantnouncountable
A cultivated plant found growing in the wild, having spread there from gardens or fields by some agency.
Surveyors recorded the lavender as an escape from an old cottage garden.
The lupins lining the railway banks are a garden escape that has thrived far from any flower bed.
Note
Botany's version of the runaway animal: a garden or crop plant found growing as if wild. It may have been carried off by wind, water, animals or people. An escape is not necessarily a naturalized species, which reproduces and sustains itself in the wild. An escape may simply persist where it landed. Surveyors record a plant as an escape from a particular garden or field.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
A botanical escape is a cultivated plant found growing as though wild. en.wiktionary.org
Escaped plants can spread by wind, water or animals. britishandirishbotany.org
People can transport escaped plants or their propagules. britishandirishbotany.org
An escape may also be naturalized; escape describes its origin outside cultivation, while naturalization describes its establishment. fermanagh.bsbi.org
Naturalized plants reproduce and sustain populations independently in the wild. growwild.kew.org
An escape may persist without establishing a self-replacing population. cbd.int
Plant surveys can identify escapes originating from a particular cultivated site. britishandirishbotany.org
15
nounobsoletecountable
A mistake, oversight, or transgression; something that has slipped past attention or restraint.
I should have been more accurate, corrected all those former escapes.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy
Note
Robert Burton, writing as Democritus Junior in The Anatomy of Melancholy, wished he had "corrected all those former escapes", meaning his own slips and errors. The sense is obsolete. Today lapse or oversight does its work. In modern prose, readers would likely take escape for a breakout, so use it only to quote or to imitate period style.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
Robert Burton wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy under the pseudonym Democritus Junior. en.wikipedia.org
Burton used the exact words quoted when acknowledging errors he should have corrected in his book. gutenberg.org
Escape has an obsolete sense meaning a mistake, oversight or transgression. en.wiktionary.org
16
nounobsoletecountable
A sally; a sudden bursting forth of words, wit, or feeling.
thousand escapes of wit
c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”
Note
Shakespeare's "thousand escapes of wit" in Measure for Measure shows this obsolete sense at work. The picture is of words breaking loose, the same release as getting free but turned to speech and feeling. It belongs with the obsolete "slip" sense as a reading word. In current English, sally or outburst carries the meaning.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
The exact phrase occurs in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, spoken by the Duke in Act 4, scene 1. folger.edu
The quotation exemplifies the obsolete sense meaning a sally. en.wiktionary.org
Escape also has an obsolete sense corresponding to a slip or mistake. en.wiktionary.org
17
noun
A defective product that is allowed to leave a manufacturing facility rather than being caught by quality control.
18
noun
In classical architecture, the small concave curve where a column's shaft flares into its base or merges into its capital.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of escape apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

Latin ex- ('out') and Late Latin cappa ('cape, cloak') together formed Vulgar Latin *excappāre, literally 'to free oneself from one's cape.' That verb became escaper in Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French (Old French eschaper, modern French échapper), and Middle English borrowed it as escapen. Escapade is a cognate, and scape is a doublet.