Etymology From Middle English escapen, from Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French escaper ( = Old French eschaper, modern French échapper), from Vulgar Latin *excappāre (“to escape a garment, get out of one's clothing”, literally “to free oneself from one's cape”), from Latin ex- (“out”) + Late Latin cappa (“cape, cloak”). Cognate with escapade. Also doublet of scape.
The factory was evacuated after toxic gases escaped from a pipe.
2
To break out of confinement.
The prisoners escaped their cell.
3
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.
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sailors that escaped the wreckc. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
In the Southern Region of British Railways, most of the damage was caused by earthslips which blocked one or both roads. Obstructions occurred at 21 places in the London Eastern District, and at 18 places in London Central District. On the other hand, the London Western District escaped comparatively lightly.1958 November 23, “Storm Damage in the Home Counties”, in Railway Magazine, page 746:
Luiz was Chelsea's stand-out performer, although Ferguson also had a case when he questioned how the £21m defender escaped a red card after the break for a hack at Rooney, with the Brazilian having already been booked.2011 March 1, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Man Utd”, in BBC:
It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
4
To avoid capture; to get away with something, avoid punishment.
Luckily, I escaped with only a fine.
5
To avoid responsibilities and stresses for a time.
Work was stressful, and I needed to escape.
6
To be forgotten by.
I used to know the name of the capital of France, but it escapes me now.
7
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.
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c. 1698-1699 (year published) Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs They escaped the search of the enemy.
Quite why a passenger from Reading would choose to reach London via Guildford rather than using Great Western Railway's frequent and fast direct services escapes me - […].2025 November 26, Philip Haigh, “Just who will be behind GBR's directing mind?”, in RAIL, number 1049, page 56:
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences 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.
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If the data for a URI component would conflict with the reserved purpose, then the conflicting data must be escaped before forming the URI.1998 August, Tim Berners-Lee et al., Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax (RFC 2396), page 8
Character Data tags allow you to place complex strings as the text of an element—without the need to manually escape the string.2002, Scott Worley, “Using XML in ASP.NET Applications”, in Inside ASP.NET, →ISBN, page 214:
Therefore, what follows is a list of typical output functions; your job is to determine if any of the functions print out tainted data that has not been passed through some sort of HTML escaping function.2007, Michael Cross, “Code Auditing and Reverse Engineering”, in Developer's Guide to Web Application Security, →ISBN, page 213:
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To halt a program or command by pressing a key (such as the "Esc" key) or combination of keys.
Etymology From Middle English escapen, from Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French escaper ( = Old French eschaper, modern French échapper), from Vulgar Latin *excappāre (“to escape a garment, get out of one's clothing”, literally “to free oneself from one's cape”), from Latin ex- (“out”) + Late Latin cappa (“cape, cloak”). Cognate with escapade. Also doublet of scape.
Business, Manufacturing A defective product that is allowed to leave a manufacturing facility.
9
Obsolete That which escapes attention or restraint; a mistake, oversight, or transgression.
I should have been more accurate, corrected all those former escapes.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
thousand escapes of witc. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]: