walk away

See also: walkaway and Walkaway

English

Pronunciation

Audio (General Australian): (file)

Verb

walk away (third-person singular simple present walks away, present participle walking away, simple past and past participle walked away)

(idiomatic) To withdraw from a problematic situation.
Company lawyers told him to walk away from the deal.
- 2022 September 21, Chris Green tells Nick Brodrick, “It's absolutely my favourite train”, in RAIL, number 966, page 35:
  Green adds: "Luckily, nobody did walk away. Railtrack stayed with it, so did the government, so did the Strategic Rail Authority.
- 2025 June 11, Stuart Heritage, “‘Please walk away from Harry Potter’: why the stars of HBO’s new TV show are in for decades of social media hell”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 21 July 2025:
  When John Lithgow was announced as Dumbledore, he revealed that a friend had sent him a link to an article entitled: “An open letter to John Lithgow: Please walk away from Harry Potter.”
(intransitive, colloquial, euphemistic) Of an object, to go missing or be stolen. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
To free oneself from a debt such as a mortgage by abandoning the collateral to the lender. To make a strategic default.
(idiomatic) To survive a challenging or dangerous situation without harm.
The football team walked away with a 1-0 victory.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk,‎ away.
I took one last look at the house and walked away.
- 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Tuchanka:
  Shepard: Mordin, walk away.
  Mordin: Can't do that, Shepard.
  Shepard: I don't have a choice here. Walk away, or I will fire.

Derived terms

Related terms

walk-away, walkaway

Translations

Nyunga: yuragool wat