escape
/ɪˈskeɪp/ verb B1- To get free; to free oneself. · The prisoners escaped by jumping over a wall.· The factory was evacuated after toxic gases escaped from a pipe.
- To break out of confinement. · The prisoners escaped their cell.
- To avoid (any unpleasant person or thing); to elude, get away from. · He only got a fine and so escaped going to jail.· The children climbed out of the window to escape the fire.
- To avoid capture; to get away with something, avoid punishment. · Luckily, I escaped with only a fine.
- To avoid responsibilities and stresses for a time. · Work was stressful, and I needed to escape.
- To be forgotten by. · I used to know the name of the capital of France, but it escapes me now.
- To elude the observation or notice of; to not be seen or remembered by. · The name of the hotel escapes me at present.· The detective examined the crime scene, but one clue escaped his notice.
- To cause (a single character, or all such characters in a string) to be interpreted literally, instead of with any special meaning it would usually have in the same context, often by prefixing with another character. · When using the "bash" shell, you can escape the ampersand character with a backslash.· Brion escaped the double quote character on Windows by adding a second double quote within the literal.
He/she/it escapes · Past escaped · Past participle escaped · -ing form escaping
Verb forms
- Base form
- escape
- He/she/it
- escapes
- Past
- escaped
- Past participle
- escaped
- -ing form
- escaping
From the library
A despairing cry escaped the pale lips of Mercédès; the old man sank into a chair.
How did you manage to escape the great Wildcat?” They all bowed so low to the little Queen that they almost stood upon their heads.
In serving the wicked, expect no reward, and be thankful if you escape injury for your pains.
The Bat assured him that he was not a mouse, but a bat, and thus a second time escaped.
Other matches
Learn escape in real texts
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