slip away

Verb

slip away (third-person singular simple present slips away, present participle slipping away, simple past and past participle slipped away)

1. To leave without being noticed.
   • I'm going to try to slip away from work early, if I can.
   • But when Bobbie crept down later to bring up her presents--for she felt she really could not be separated from them all night--Mother was not writing, but leaning her head on her arms and her arms on the table. I think it was rather good of Bobbie to slip quietly away, saying over and over, "She...1906, Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children, Chapter 4: The engine-burglar

   Synonyms:

   slide off, slip off, sneak off

2. To pass quickly, almost unnoticed.
   • The months slipped away and became years.
   • But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 7, in The Great Gatsby, page 144
3. To disappear; to elude one; to recede; to dwindle.
   • What about love?
     Don't you want someone to care about you?
     What about love?
     Don't let it slip away1985, Brian Allen, Sheron Alton, Jim Vallance, “What About Love”, in Heart, performed by Heart
   • Scharner then headed a Dorrans free-kick against the crossbar, with Tchoyi unable to turn in the follow-up as the Baggies saw their hopes of salvaging a point slip away.2010 December 28, Kevin Darling, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC
4. (euphemistic) To die peacefully.
   • He slipped away quietly in his sleep.