fly the coop

Cultural  

1. To get away or escape: “The Hendersons found the cocktail party rather dull and decided to fly the coop.”

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fly the coop Idioms  

1. Escape, run away, as in After years of fighting with my mother, my father finally flew the coop. This term originally meant “escape from jail,” known as the coop in underworld slang since the late 1700s. [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fly the coop

Don Knotts, “Mr. Chicken” himself, was ready to fly the coop out of L.A.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026

Before you fly the coop, save up a cushion of three to 12 months of living expenses.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 31, 2023

And so the last dove prepares to fly the coop, and the end of an era of super-cheap liquidity comes into view.

From Reuters ● Dec. 20, 2022

Research on previous social media platform migrations shows what might lie ahead for Twitter users who fly the coop.

From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2022

All considered, it may be in my best interest to fly the coop rather than sit on my current nest egg.

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

Related Words

• avoid
• depart
• disappear
• dodge
• elude
• emerge
• evade
• flee
• fly
• leave
• run
• slip
• slip away
• vanish