Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To run away, as from trouble or danger.
  • intransitive verb To pass swiftly away; vanish.
  • intransitive verb To run away from.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete or dialectal form of fly.
  • To run away; take flight; seek escape or safety by flight.
  • To disappear; disperse: as, all our pleasures have fled; the color fled from her cheeks; the clouds flee before the rising sun.
  • To move swiftly; fly; speed, as a missile.
  • To avoid by flight; fly from; shun.
  • An obsolete form of fly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To run away, as from danger or evil; to avoid in an alarmed or cowardly manner; to hasten off; -- usually with from. This is sometimes omitted, making the verb transitive.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To run away; to escape.
  • verb transitive To escape from.
  • verb intransitive To disappear quickly; to vanish.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb run away quickly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English flen, from Old English flēon; see pleu- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English flēon, from Proto-Germanic *fleuhanan.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word flee.

Examples

  • Mara and Dann in the eco-fable of the same name flee from a new Ice Age to an uncertain foothold in what used to be Africa.

    The Nobel Prize in Literature 2007 - Presentation Speech 2007

  • They pick up a sixteen year old signal in French from previous castaways, they encounter and kill a polar bear, and they flee from a monster which has thus far remained out of sight (and which also devoured the pilot who was the sole survivor from the front section of the aircraft).

    12 « February « 2009 « Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009

  • They pick up a sixteen year old signal in French from previous castaways, they encounter and kill a polar bear, and they flee from a monster which has thus far remained out of sight (and which also devoured the pilot who was the sole survivor from the front section of the aircraft).

    Axiom’s Edge Flashback: Review of Lost from Season 1 2009

  • The rush to flee from the men in black had overridden concerns about direction, and his GPS had been corrupted in the midst of his attack on the drones.

    NaNoWriMo: Talos & Charlie « The Graveyard 2009

  • Taliban captors held him hostage for seven months, until June of last year, when he and his Afghan colleague managed to flee from a compound in Pakistan's North Waziristan region.

    Former Hostage: Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban Work 'Seamlessly Together' 2010

  • BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A man who repossesses artificial organs must flee from the organization that employs him when he cannot pay for his own artificial heart.

    March 2010 2010

  • Reuters reports that “Taliban fighters are shaving off their beards and trying to flee from a Pakistani army offensive in their Swat bastion, the military said on Friday, as it relaxed a curfew to allow civilians to get out.”

    Wonk Room » The WonkLine: May 15, 2009 2009

  • He wanted to flee from the artifice of his father’s creation: he longed to become an autonomous adult, to be a man, not the object of nostalgic pilgrimages to a living shrine not of his making.

    An Interview With Cynthia Ozick 2010

  • BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A man who repossesses artificial organs must flee from the organization that employs him when he cannot pay for his own artificial heart.

    MOVIE REVIEW: Repo Men (2010) 2010

  • That weak souls, and sensitive souls, and high-pitched souls flee from the crassness and the rawness of the world to the drug-dreams of the over-world of rhythm and vibration — ­

    CHAPTER XI 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.