Word.ws English Dictionary

flown the coop

flown the coop is the past participle 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 flown the coop

What is flown the coop the past participle of?
Flown the coop is the past participle of fly the coop.

Words near flown the coop in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flown 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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