duck out

English

Etymology

Possibly an allusion to the abrupt manner in which a swimming duck can dive and disappear beneath the surface of the water.

Pronunciation

Audio (General Australian): (file)

Verb

duck out (third-person singular simple present ducks out, present participle ducking out, simple past and past participle ducked out)

(idiomatic, intransitive) To depart quickly or exit abruptly, especially in a manner which does not attract notice and before a meeting, event, etc. has concluded.
- 1921, Ring Lardner, Sr., chapter 4, in The Big Town:
  Wile they was still talking along these lines, the orchestra begin to drool a Perfect Day, so I ducked out on the porch for air.
- 1991 June 8, Richard Berke, “Sizzling 40-Year Streak Of Never Missing a Vote”, in New York Times, retrieved 26 November 2010:
  Fearful of missing a roll-call, Representative Charles E. Bennett has ducked out of funerals, bolted from hospital beds and defied snowstorms to get to the House chamber.
- 2002 August 29, Leonie Lamont, “Working mothers triumph in two rulings”, in Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, retrieved 26 November 2010:
  Cathy Song needed to duck out from work at 3pm to ferry her child from pre-school to a neighbour's.
(idiomatic, transitive) To depart quickly or exit abruptly by way of, especially in a manner which does not attract notice and before a meeting, event, etc. has concluded.
- 1981 June 15, “Copious Coping: How Other Mayors Fare”, in Time:
  The four-term Democrat, known to critics as "King Kevin" and "Mayor De Luxe," has been threatened with recall petitions and recently ducked out the back door of a restaurant to avoid picketers.
(idiomatic, intransitive, followed by of or from) To move or act so as to achieve avoidance, escape, or evasion.
- 1911, Jack London, “A Piece of Steak”, in When God Laughs and Other Stories:
  In the one moment he saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background of white, watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent and the background of faces.
- 1978, "Another free lunch" (editorial), St. Petersburg Times (USA), 20 March, p. 10A (retrieved 26 Nov 2010):
  Congress even now is considering enlarging that deficit by cutting those taxes. . . . It means ducking out of the basic Social Security problem.
- 2002 April 1, Ian Taylor, “Obstacles to Change in Africa”, in Foreign Policy in Focus, retrieved 26 November 2010:
  [A]ny project for renewal is subject to a wide variety of destabilizing forces, not least when elites seek to duck out from the commitments they themselves have made.
(transitive, slang) To avoid a debt; to skip out on a bill.

Usage notes

When used in the sense of "to depart" or "to exit", there is sometimes a connotation that the resulting absence will be temporary, as in: I ducked out for a cigarette.

Coordinate terms

take a French leave

Translations

(intransitive) to depart quickly or exit abruptly

Russian: улизнуть (ru) (uliznutʹ)
Spanish: escaquearse (es)

(transitive) to depart quickly or exit abruptly by way of

to move or act so as to achieve avoidance, escape, or evasion

Russian: избегать (ru) (izbegatʹ)

References

“duck out”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.