spirit away

1. Carry off mysteriously or secretly, as in The police found that the documents had been spirited away from the office. This term derives from the noun spirit, in the sense of “a supernatural being such as a ghost.” [Second half of 1600s]

Example Sentences

Or will this theft join the ranks of unsolved art heists, alongside the 1990 robbery that spirited away an estimated $500 million of paintings and sketches from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston?

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Instead of shutting their doors and pouring some pre-Christian version of holy water around their houses to keep the spirits away, people would often do the exact opposite.

Read more on Salon

They moved forward, relentlessly, ever bent, following a hulking machine with a conveyor belt that spirited away their fruit.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Agents intercepted text messages in which Facey and Sanchez talked about using a private plane to spirit away an underling who had narrowly avoided arrest in Anchorage, prosecutors wrote in the bail motion.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Later on the day it appeared, refuse collectors arrived to spirit away the fridge-freezer.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• ambush 
• annex 
• apprehend 
• arrest 
• capture 
• catch 
• commandeer 
• confiscate 
• force 
• grab 
• hijack 
• impound 
• kidnap 
• occupy 
• overrun 
• take 
• take over