run away
verb1
To flee by running.
- The crowd had to run away from the burning structure with only the clothes on their backs.
- Sometimes I feel I've got to / Run away / I've got to / Get away from the pain you drive into the heart of me1965, Ed Cobb, “Tainted Love”, in Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, performed by Soft Cell, published 1981:
2
To leave home, or other place of residence, usually unannounced, or to make good on a threat, with such action usually performed by a child or juvenile.
- My parents want me to take a bath every day? Fine, I'm running away.
- "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. Then I ran away and sold papers in the streets, and anything else that I could pick up a few coppers by—except steal. I never did that.[…]."1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC:
2 more examples
- I decided to move out of the house when I was 24; my mother still refers to this as the time I ran away from home.1974, Rhoda (opening credit scene), spoken by Rhoda Morgenstern:
- Look, kid... it's getting kind of late. It'll be dark soon. Maybe running away today isn't such a good idea.2005 September 17, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic):
3
To become a runaway. (of a device or vehicle)
- The train's brakes failed and it ran away.
- An autotrim failure can cause stabiliser trim to rapidly run away in the nose-up or nose-down direction.
1 more example
- The complete 1892 rebuilding, indeed, followed an accident in 1890, when No. 6 ran away down the Buckley branch, and got badly smashed up in a collision at Connah's Quay.1944 May and June, “Notes and News: A Much Transformed Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 186:
- Synonyms
- hop the twig
- Derived terms
- look like who did it and ran away
- Related terms
- runaway