flight
noun
Flight — the urgent act of fleeing from danger or pursuit
Definition
The act of escaping physically; "he made his escape from the mental hospital"; "the canary escaped from its cage"; "his flight was an indication of his guilt"
In depth
Flight, in this sense, names the act of physically escaping, particularly fleeing from danger, pursuit, or an unbearable situation, the word carrying urgency and often desperation. It shares spelling and a faint conceptual kinship with the unrelated sense of flight as airborne travel, both invoking, in their own way, rapid movement away from one place toward another.
Origin
The word descends from Old English fleon, to flee, related to but distinct from the verb 'to fly,' though the two have become entangled over centuries of use. That ancient verb for fleeing danger carries within it the long, often painful history of human displacement, refugees and exiles whose flight from danger shaped entire diasporas and cultures.
Usage examples
"Their flight from the burning village took them through forests neither had ever traveled before."
"The criminal's flight from justice lasted nearly a decade before he was finally apprehended."
"She remembered her family's flight only in fragments, images too painful to ever fully reassemble into a single coherent story."
How to use it
Flight in the sense of fleeing carries significant emotional and historical weight, particularly in writing about war, persecution, and displacement, and writers should rely on context to distinguish this sense clearly from the unrelated meaning of airborne travel.
Related concepts
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