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

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

This really began to sink in after we'd had Ernie and Bert for a month, when Richie was cleaning their enclosure one Sunday afternoon and Ernie took the opportunity to, quite literally, fly the coop.

From Salon • Aug. 4, 2022

We are free at last, but here, just at the moment the gate swings open, and we can fly the coop, Tía Carmen's love revives our old homesickness.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

Related Words

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