French leave
UK/fɹɛnt͡ʃ ˈliːv/US/fɹɛnt͡ʃ ˈliv/
French leave noun: a departure taken quietly and unnoticed, without asking for permission or informing anyone.
Noun
French leave (uncountable)
- A departure taken quietly and unnoticed, without asking for permission or informing anyone.
- As for Ditton, after all his courting, and his compliment, he ſtole avvay an Iriſhman's bride, and took a French leave of me and his maſter; […]1771, [Tobias Smollett], “To Mrs. Mary Jones, at Brambleton-hall”, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker […], volume II, London: […] W. Johnston, […]; and B. Collins, […], →OCLC, page 226
- Synonyms:
- French exit, AWOL, disappearing act, Irish goodbye
- Desertion or temporary absence from duty or service without permission; absence without leave, AWOL.
- he may have felt a particular need to mitigate the responsibility of those who shirked their duty, for as he wrote that letter he had just returned from French leave himself.2010, William Marvel, The Great Task Remaining: The Third Year of Lincoln’s War, page 10
French leave meaning in Kannada
French leave in Kannada
- ಅನುಮತಿ ಇಲ್ಲದ ಗೈರುಹಾಜರಿ
Synonyms of French leave
Origin of French leave
From French (adjective) + leave (noun), apparently from a French custom, already recorded in the 18th century, of leaving from receptions or other events without formally announcing one’s departure to the host or hostess. Compare Spanish irse a la francesa and Portuguese sair à francesa (“go in the French manner”) but also the otherwise ubiquitous attribution of this behaviour to the English as with French filer à l’anglaise (“leave in the English manner”), Italian filarsela all'inglese, Polish wyjść po angielsku, etc.
Words formed from French leave
Words that rhyme with French leave
45 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- eve
- grieve
- Kharkiv
- breve
- conceive
- naive
- neve
- Pishchiv
- weave
- keeve
- Neave
- Piskiv
- reeve
- screeve
- skeeve
- aggrieve
- beleave
- greave
- interweave
- perceive
- reave
- seave
- sheave
- shrieve
- sleave
- steeve
- steve
- take French leave
- Abib
- beeve
- deceive
- dreve
- Dutch leave
- eave
- gneeve
- khedive
- nieve
- peeve
- preconceive
- rebelieve
- reperceive
- thieve
- transceive
- we've
- Yves
Questions about French leave
- What does French leave mean?
- French leave means a departure taken quietly and unnoticed, without asking for permission or informing anyone.
- What is French leave in Kannada?
- French leave in Kannada is ಅನುಮತಿ ಇಲ್ಲದ ಗೈರುಹಾಜರಿ. See French leave meaning in Kannada.
- What part of speech is French leave?
- French leave is a noun.
- How do you pronounce French leave?
- French leave is pronounced /fɹɛnt͡ʃ ˈliːv/ (UK).
Words near French leave in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: French leave (page history and authors); French leave (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-French leave.ogg.
Cite this entry: “French leave.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/french_leave. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.