take French leave

English

Alternative forms

• take a French leave

Verb

take French leave (third-person singular simple present takes French leave, present participle taking French leave, simple past and past participle took French leave)

1. (intransitive, pejorative) To leave unannounced or without permission
2. To desert. To go AWOL.
   • 1786: "John Homespun", To the author of the Lounger included in Alexander Chalmers, The British Essayists: With Prefaces, Historical and Biographical (1802)

     I ... agreed with him, who seemed as willing to be gone as myself, that we should cut short our visit and ... take a French leave early next morning.

   • 1824: Edward Allen Talbot, Five Years' Residence in the Canadas: Including a Tour Through Part of the United States of America

     No sooner do European servants arrive in America, than ...they ... take French leave of their employers, and, procuring land for themselves, commence the occupation of farming on their own account.

   • 1829:' William Nugent Glascock, Sailors and saints; or, Matrimonial manœuvres, by the authors of the 'Naval sketch book

     The first suggestion of the moment was one altogether unworthy of him, which was to incur the imputation of adopting Gallican habits, and taking what is known by the term "French leave".

   • 1904: Elroy McKendree Avery, William Abbatt, A History of the United States and Its People: From Their Earliest Records to the Present Time

     In spite of threats and punishment, many Canadians deserted in order to care for their families and to provide food for the coming winter; more than two thousand are said thus to have taken French leave.

   • 2005: Chidi Giniji, A Biafran Odyssey

     I asked the boy to give them a bottle of Stout beer each before taking a French leave.

Synonyms

The terms below need to be checked and allocated to the definitions (senses) of the headword above. Each term should appear in the sense for which it is appropriate. Use the template {{sense|"gloss"}}, substituting a short version of the definition for "gloss".

• abscond
• AWOL

Translations

take French leave

Czech: zmizet po anglicku (cs) Finnish: puntata, lähteä puntikselle, lähteä bundelle French: filer à l’anglaise (fr) (to take English leave) German: französischen Abschied nehmen (de) Hungarian: angolosan távozik (hu)

Italian: filarsela all’inglese (it) Polish: wyjść po angielsku (pl) Romanian: o șterge englezește (ro) (to take English leave) Russian: уйти по-английски (ru) (ujtí po-anglíjski) Spanish: irse a la francesa  (es)