abscond

verb

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó Proto-Italic *ap Latin abder. Latin abs- Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁tder. Proto-Italic *-ðō Latin -dō Latin condō Latin abscondōder. Middle French abscondrebor. ▲ Latin abscondōbor. English abscond Either borrowed from Middle French abscondre or directly from Latin abscondō (“hide”); formed from abs, ab (“away”) + condō (“put together, store”), from con- (“together”) + *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place, set”). * Cognate with sconce (“a type of light fixture”).

1. To flee, often secretly; to steal away.

   “The thieves absconded with our property.”

   “[…] that very homesickness which, in regular armies, drives so many recruits to abscond at the risk of stripes and of death.”

2. To flee, often secretly; to steal away.

   “I've often speculated why you don't return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator's wife? I like to think you killed a man. It's the Romantic in me.”

   “Andy did break his bargain, lurked in the neighborhood a few days, and then, being pursued by the sheriff, absconded to parts unknown.”

3. To flee, often secretly; to steal away.

   “[European honey bees] raise large colonies, hoard large quantities of honey, are more gentle than other species and almost never abscond.”

4. To hide, to be in hiding or concealment.

   “the Marmotto, […] which absconds all Winter doth […] live upon its own Fat.”

5. To evade, to hide or flee from.

   “The captain absconded his responsibility.”

   “If the distress situation is solved successfully, the anonymous shipowner will reap the commercial benefit, if the situation ends in disaster, the shipowner will hide behind an anonymous post box in a foreign country and will abscond responsibility.”

6. To conceal; to take away.

   “for having applied to the Side of the Head any thin black Body, such as the Brim of a Hat, so as it may abscond the Objects that are upon that Side”

   “They examined every prisoner by himself (who were in all about two hundred and fifty persons) where they had absconded the rest of their goods”