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.
“People are really scared,” said a retired oil executive who packed his bags and fled for his villa on the Caspian Sea after watching missiles flying over Tehran.
Andrea Siposova, who fled to the same car park, told AFP she had prepared for the shelter in case war broke out.
From Barron's
A family dispute has also caught attention: his sister Badri fell out with her family in the 1980s and fled to Iraq in the war to join her husband, a dissident cleric.
From Barron's
This is the dynamic the economist Albert Hirschman warned about: That loyalty is what turns frustration into voice—the impulse to fix what is broken rather than flee.
But she subsequently fled again and has been missing for months.
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.
