verb
-
to run away from (a place, danger, etc); fly
to flee the country
-
(intr) to run or move quickly; rush; speed
she fled to the door
verb
noun
Usage
What does flee mean? To flee is to run away or escape from a dangerous or otherwise negative situation.Much less commonly, flee can be used to mean to move at a fast pace. The past tense of flee is fled.Example: He was forced to flee his home as a result of the impending battle.
Other Word Forms
- fleer noun
- outflee verb (used with object)
- unfleeing adjective
Etymology
Origin of flee
First recorded before 900; Middle English fleen, Old English flēon; cognate with Old High German flichan ( German fliehen ), Gothic thliuhan; compare Old English fleogan “to fly”; fly 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The two met later that year when Michelangelo fled Florence.
After finishing the ugly job assigned to him, Cyril Radcliffe burned all his papers, refused his handsome fee of 40,000 rupees and fled the subcontinent.
His next translated book, “Now I Surrender,” is equally ambitious, telling the story of a woman fleeing an Apache raid on the Mexican-American border.
From Los Angeles Times
A refugee from the Sino-Japanese War who fled mainland China to Hong Kong, he started a business in 1950 manufacturing plastic flowers and named it Cheung Kong after China's Yangtze River.
From Barron's
Many other men are either in hiding or have paid bribes to flee the country illegally.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
