Word.ws English Dictionary

take a powder

take a powder verb: to leave without saying goodbye; to leave quietly, to run away; to scram; to depart without taking leave or notifying anyone, often with the implication of avoiding something unpleasant or shirking responsibility.

Verb

take a powder (third-person singular simple present takes a powder, present participle taking a powder, simple past took a powder, past participle taken a powder)

  1. (US, colloquial, idiomatic) To leave without saying goodbye; to leave quietly, to run away; to scram; to depart without taking leave or notifying anyone, often with the implication of avoiding something unpleasant or shirking responsibility.
    • Macdonald spoke slowly, bitterly. "The kidnapping is one too many for me, Costello. I don't want any part of it. I'm takin' a powder from this toy mob. I took a chance that bright boy might side me."1933, Raymond Chandler, “Blackmailers Don't Shoot”, in Collected Stories, Everyman's Library, published 2002, page 20
    • First Mrs Hitchcock packed up and took a powder, and there was hell to pay.1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “They Found the Body in a Ditch”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 2 (1923–1928: Chicago, Chicago), page 66

Examples of take a powder in a sentence

  • Our idea was that once the storm had subsided we'd take a powder one night with our dough. . .1971, Louis-Ferdinand D. Celine, Death on the Installment Plan, page 446:
  • Tilton said you told him you would take a powder." "Take a powder?" said Henry.1979, Dan McCall, Beecher: A Novel, page 162:
  • But when you suffer losses, Uncle Sam may take a powder.2000, Barbara Weltman, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, page 271:

Synonyms of take a powder

Forms of take a powder

third-person singular presenttakes a powder
present participletaking a powder
pasttook a powder
past participletaken a powder

Questions about take a powder

What does take a powder mean?
Take a powder means to leave without saying goodbye; to leave quietly, to run away; to scram; to depart without taking leave or notifying anyone, often with the implication of avoiding something unpleasant or shirking responsibility.
How do you use take a powder in a sentence?
Our idea was that once the storm had subsided we'd take a powder one night with our dough. . .
What part of speech is take a powder?
Take a powder is a verb.
What is the past tense of take a powder?
The past tense of take a powder is took a powder.

Words near take a powder in the dictionary

  1. take a picture, it will last longer
  2. take a picture, it'll last longer
  3. take a pill
  4. take a piss
  5. take a pitch
  6. take a powder
  7. take a pull
  8. take a rain check
  9. take a raincheck
  10. take a reef in
  11. take a ride to Tyburn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take a powder (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-take a powder.ogg.

Cite this entry: “take a powder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_a_powder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.