What Does Escape Mean?
Escape is a verb and a noun.
- To get away from a place, a person or a danger. The hamster escaped from its cage.
- To avoid something unpleasant. We escaped the rain.
- A noun: the act of getting away. It was a narrow escape.
The bird escaped through the open window.
We had a lucky escape.
🔊 Pronunciation
ih-SKAYP
The stress is on the second part. It starts with es-, not ex-.
🗣️ Natural Examples
The cat escaped through a hole in the fence.
We escaped the rain by running into the library.
It was a narrow escape!
The class made an escape room for the school fair.
Press the escape key to close the window.
🛠️ How to Use It
Escape is common and works everywhere.
- Use from with a place: escape from the cage.
- You can also escape something without a preposition: escape the heat.
- The noun often goes with have, make or narrow: a narrow escape.
- Escape is also a key on the keyboard: Esc.
🤝 Common Word Partners
- escape from
- a narrow escape
- an escape route
- an escape room
- escape the rain
- the escape key
- a fire escape
👯 Similar and Related Words
- flee: to run away from danger. It is stronger and more formal.
- get away: the everyday way to say escape.
- break out: to get out of a prison or a closed place.
- avoid: to stay away from something on purpose.
- rescue: when someone else helps you get safe.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
Use from with a place.
❌ The bird escaped of the cage.
✅ The bird escaped from the cage.
Spelling and sound. It starts with es-.
❌ excape, ex-cape
✅ escape
Escape or rescue?
❌ The firefighters escaped the cat.
✅ The firefighters rescued the cat. The cat escaped from the tree.
💬 In a Conversation
Sam: My hamster escaped again.
Mia: Where did it go?
Sam: It left its cape behind.
Mia: Hamsters do not wear capes.
Sam: Then how does the word escape work?
🕵️ Where Does It Come From?
Dictionaries trace the word through Old French eschaper to Vulgar Latin *excappāre, built from Latin ex-, "out", and cappa, "cape" or "cloak".
The usual picture is someone slipping out of their cape and leaving it in the hands of the person chasing them. The star in front of excappāre shows that it is a reconstructed form, not one found in old texts. So this is a likely explanation, not proof.
A cousin of escape is escapade, a daring adventure.
💡 The OddLingo Trick
Imagine a cape in a chaser's hands.
The person has slipped away and left the cape behind. When you escape, you slip out of something.