Word.ws English Dictionary

taken a powder

taken a powder is the past participle of take a powder.

Meaning of take a powder

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

Questions about taken a powder

What is taken a powder the past participle of?
Taken a powder is the past participle of take a powder.

Words near taken a powder in the dictionary

  1. taken a pew
  2. taken a picture
  3. taken a pill
  4. taken a piss
  5. taken a pitch
  6. taken a powder
  7. taken a pull
  8. taken a rain check
  9. taken a raincheck
  10. taken a reef in
  11. taken a ride to Tyburn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taken a powder (page history and authors); 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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