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escape
escape fire
1. A fire created in an area of vegetation so as to create a path clear of fuel to avoid an oncoming wildfire. A lighter might seem like the last thing you'd need in the middle of a grasslands wildfire, but it saved my life when I used it to start an escape fire.
2. By extension, any nonstandard, counterintuitive, and/or improvised solution to a problem that is too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional means. The country's welfare debt was so insurmountable that the government began looking at radical escape fires to manage the situation.
escape the bear and fall to the lion
To avoid a frightening or problematic situation, only to end up in a worse one later. A: "After I swerved to avoid hitting a pedestrian, I wound up in oncoming traffic, and my car was totalled." B: "That's awful. You escaped the bear and fell to the lion."
narrow escape
A situation in which danger or problems are barely avoided. That guy barely made it over the tracks before the train came. What a narrow escape!
avenue of escape
A way or path out of something. That beetle doesn't seem to know that his only avenue of escape is the open window. The fire was in the kitchen, so our only avenue of escape was through the front door.
avenue of escape
Fig. the pathway or route along which someone or something escapes. The open window was the bird's only avenue of escape from the house. Bill saw that his one avenue of escape was through the back door.
by the skin of one's teeth
Fig. just barely. (By an amount equal to the thickness of the (imaginary) skin on one's teeth.) I got through calculus class by the skin of my teeth. I got to the airport a few minutes late and missed the plane by the skin of my teeth. Lloyd escaped from the burning building by the skin of his teeth.
escape (from someone or something) (to some place)
to get away from someone, something, or some place to another place. Max escaped from prison to a hideout in Alabama. He escaped to Alabama from one of the worst-run prisons in the land.
escape someone's notice
Fig. to go unnoticed; not to have been noticed. (Usually a way to point out that someone has failed to see or respond to something.) I suppose my earlier request escaped your notice, so I'm writing again. I'm sorry. Your letter escaped my notice.
Little thieves are hanged, but great ones escape.
Prov. Truly expert criminals are never caught. Everyone's making such a fuss because they convicted that bank robber, but he must not have been a very dangerous criminal. Little thieves are hanged, but great ones escape.
it escapes me
1. I do not notice something If there was something important in that package, it certainly escaped me.
2. I do not remember something I knew his name a minute ago, but now it escapes me.
a narrow escape
a situation in which you were lucky because you just managed to avoid danger or trouble He only just got out of the vehicle before the whole thing blew up. It was a narrow escape.
by the skin of your teeth
(informal) if you do something by the skin of your teeth, you only just succeed in doing it We escaped by the skin of our teeth. England held on by the skin of their teeth to win 1-0.
escape notice
Elude attention or observation, as in It must have escaped the editor's notice so I'll write again. [c. 1700]
narrow escape
A barely successful flight from or avoidance of danger or trouble, as in
He had a narrow escape, since the bullet came within inches of his head. This expression uses
narrow in the sense of "barely sufficient." [Late 1500s] For a newer synonym, see
close call.
by the skin of (one's) teeth
By the smallest margin.