departure

plural departures

1. countableuncountableThe act of departing or something that has departed.

   The departure was scheduled for noon.

   3 more examples

   The departure was not unduly prolonged. In the road Mr. Love and the driver favoured the company with a brief chanty running: “Got it?—No, I ain't, 'old on,—Got it? Got it?—No, 'old on sir.”

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   But the outstanding feature of the new timetable arrangement, additional to the standardised departure times, is the number of intermediate points, in addition to such principal cities as Bristol, Plymouth, Cardiff and Birmingham, that now have departures for Paddington at the same minutes past the hour throughout the day.

   1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: Western Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 590

   Villa spent most of the second period probing from wide areas and had a succession of corners but despite their profligacy they will be glad to overturn the 6-0 hammering they suffered at St James' Park in August following former boss Martin O'Neill's departure.

   2011 April 10, Alistair Magowan, “Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport

2. countableuncountableA deviation from a plan or procedure.

   There are several significant departures, however, from current practice.

   1 more example

   any departure from a national standard

   1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC

3. countableeuphemisticuncountableA death.

   The time of my departure is at hand.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Timothy 4:6

   1 more example

   His timely departure […] barred him from the knowledge of his son's miseries.

   The New Arcadia

   a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC

4. countableuncountablenavigationThe distance due east or west made by a ship in its course reckoned in plane sailing as the product of the distance sailed and the sine of the angle made by the course with the meridian.
5. countableuncountablegeographyThe difference in easting between the two ends of a line or curve.

   The area is computed by latitudes and departures.

6. countableuncountablelawThe desertion by a party to any pleading of the ground taken by him in his last antecedent pleading, and the adoption of another
7. countableobsoleteuncountableDivision; separation; putting away.

   no other remedy […] but absolute departure

   1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC