Word.ws English Dictionary

flew the coop

flew the coop is the simple past of fly the coop.

Meaning of fly the coop

Verb

fly the coop (third-person singular simple present flies the coop, present participle flying the coop, simple past flew the coop, past participle flown the coop)

  1. (figuratively) To depart hastily or unannounced; to escape or flee.
    • Not liking the accommodations, I took the first chance and flew the coop.1910, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 3, in A Texas Ranger
  2. To escape from a pen or similar enclosure.
    • Explained a Curtiz assistant: "We had three ravens in Assisi; one died of cold, and another flew the coop."1961 January 6, “Assisi Revisited”, in Time

Questions about flew the coop

What is flew the coop the simple past of?
Flew the coop is the simple past of fly the coop.

Words near flew the coop in the dictionary

  1. flew off the shelves
  2. flew out
  3. flew out of the traps
  4. flew solo
  5. flew the blue pigeon
  6. flew the coop
  7. flew the flag
  8. flew the freak flag
  9. flew the kite
  10. flew the nest
  11. flew too close to the sun

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flew the coop (page history and authors); fly the coop (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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