escape

present singular third person escapes · participle present escaping · participle past escaped · past escaped

1. intransitiveTo get free; to free oneself.

   The prisoners escaped by jumping over a wall.

   1 more example

   The factory was evacuated after toxic gases escaped from a pipe.

2. transitiveTo break out of confinement.

   The prisoners escaped their cell.

3. transitiveTo avoid (any unpleasant person or thing); to elude, get away from.

   He only got a fine and so escaped going to jail.

   5 more examples

   The children climbed out of the window to escape the fire.

   There's no escaping the fact that the house needs painting.

   sailors that escaped the wreck

   c. 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 28, “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

4. intransitiveTo avoid capture; to get away with something, avoid punishment.

   Luckily, I escaped with only a fine.

5. intransitiveTo avoid responsibilities and stresses for a time.

   Work was stressful, and I needed to escape.

6. transitiveTo be forgotten by.

   I used to know the name of the capital of France, but it escapes me now.

7. transitiveTo elude the observation or notice of; to not be seen or remembered by.

   The name of the hotel escapes me at present.

   3 more examples

   The detective examined the crime scene, but one clue escaped his notice.

   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

8. transitivecomputingTo 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.

   4 more examples

   Brion escaped the double quote character on Windows by adding a second double quote within the literal.

   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

9. computingTo halt a program or command by pressing a key (such as the "Esc" key) or combination of keys.
10. intransitiveagricultureTo grow wild, instead of in a cultivated area.

    You have to be careful planting mint, or it will escape and take over your yard.

11. transitiveTo express, especially involuntarily.

    I tried to look disappointed, but a smile escaped me.

plural escapes

1. countableuncountableThe act of leaving a dangerous or unpleasant situation.

   The prisoners made their escape by digging a tunnel.

2. countableuncountableLeakage or outflow, as of steam or a liquid, or an electric current through defective insulation.
3. countableuncountableSomething that has escaped; an escapee.

   But what about the flocks of Waxbills? Are they escapes gone feral, or are they spreading from Africa?

   2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 124

4. countableuncountableA holiday, viewed as time away from the vicissitudes of life.
5. countableuncountablecomputingescape key
6. countableuncountablecomputingThe text character represented by 27 (decimal) or 1B (hexadecimal).

   You forgot to insert an escape in the datastream.

7. countableuncountableball gamesA successful shot from a snooker position.
8. countableuncountablebusinessA defective product that is allowed to leave a manufacturing facility.
9. countableobsoleteuncountableThat 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

10. countableobsoleteuncountableA sally.

    thousand escapes of wit

    c. 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]

11. countableuncountablearchitectureAn apophyge.
12. countableuncountablebiologyA cultivated plant found growing as though wild, dispersed by some agency.