walkaway
walkaway noun: a case of a person walking away (e.g. an inmate from a facility, a cult member from a community); a person who walks away.
Noun
walkaway (plural walkaways)
- A case of a person walking away (e.g. an inmate from a facility, a cult member from a community); a person who walks away.
- There had been several walkaways from the juvenile center.
- […] the inmate must be readied to resmue control of his own affairs through the gradual relaxation of restrictions. This always involves the risk of walkaways, which should not be confused with an escape from an institution with extreme security. The walkaway is not a triumph by the inmate over the...1968, W. T. McGrath, chapter 20, in Report of the Alberta Penology Study, page 129
- An easy victory; a very unequal contest (also used attributively).
- The upcoming election is unlikely to be a walkaway for the encumbent.
- a walkaway victory; a walkaway winner
- Synonyms:
- walkover
- A business termination in which the entrepreneur winds up the business with its obligations met.
- A property that has been abandoned when the mortgager failed to make their payments, while the mortgagee has abandoned its foreclosure action to avoid the costs associated with ownership.
- Newer construction usually means more empty houses. Foreclosures and walkaways are a lot higher for them than for the developments that date back to the 1970s.2011, Steve Campbell (as Nova), chapter 12, in Gardener Summer
- In a negotiation, the terms representing the least a party is willing to accept (also used attributively).
- walkaway price; walkaway point
- Prepare by knowing your walkaway and by building the number of variables you can work with during the negotiation.1993, Benson P. Shapiro and J. J. Sviokla, chapter 2, in Seeking Customers, page 218
- Synonyms:
- bottom line
- A vehicle lease under which the lessee is not responsible for the value of the vehicle at the end of the lease period.
- Synonyms:
- closed-end lease
- Intended to be consumed while walking.
- The colorful proceedings are augmented by the presence of vendors who serve steamed, cracked crabs out of cauldrons, along with other walkaway fish specialties.2012, Rosanna Cirigliano and Richard Fremantle, “Fisherman’s Wharf”, in San Francisco, page 37
- A kind of sweet pastry containing cream cheese.
- […] I hang around with her for a few hous and talk and go to Ida’s and get her chocolate shakes or walkaways or magazines.1984, John Fox, chapter 14, in The Boys on the Rock, page 76
- The baker always cut off a slice for me to taste and I knew instantly why they called the delicious pastry walkaways—because you walked away with it.2012, Peter Cacciolfi and Pattimari Sheets Cacciolfi, Stolen Identity, page 142
- A meal break during which food is not provided, and workers are expected to leave the location to eat.
- The theft of a suitcase at a hotel through distraction, deception, etc.; a person who engages in this type of theft.
- The Walkaway has a hundred variations which all come down to a distraction at the critical time when your luggage has not yet been assigned to the charge of one particular bellman.1954, Stewart Sterling, chapter 3, in I Was a House Detective, pages 25-26
- Leave your suitcase unguarded and a walkaway picked it up―if caught, it was “sorry, my mistake” […]2002, Stephen Lewis, chapter 6, in Hotel Kid: A Times Square Childhood, page 158
- An elevated enclosed passage providing access fore and aft from the bridge of a merchant vessel; any similarly elevated walkway.
- Between the two houses the deck is so low that waves often wash over it, and so there has to be a high bridge called a walkaway or a catwalk.1953, Mary Elting, Ships at Work, pages 37-38
- Synonyms:
- catwalk
- A type of sea shanty.
- A rope or “purchase” thrown over the stern of the ship was held by men on each side of the deck, and as they marched forward scraping the bottom with the rope, they sang the walkaway in unison.1972, Duncan Emrich, chapter 28, in Folklore on the American Land, page 439
- Synonyms:
- hand-over-hand, stamp-and-go
- A person who forgets to take their change after purchasing a ticket at the circus; the money abandoned in this way.
- “I am stalling for a walkaway,” if I refrain from notifying a customer that he has forgotten his change. The “walkaway,” a flurried, absent-minded, or hurrying person who leaves his return money behind, is legion and a constant source of joy to the ticket-seller.1905, William Carter Thompson, chapter 1, in On the Road with a Circus, page 21
- A number of men and women out of every thousand are sure to forget their change at the ticket window. The “walkaways,” as they are called, who forget their change, but do not know they have done so, and never return for it, are worth about twenty dollars to the ticket-seller in an average big...1920, Fred C. Kelly, Human Nature in Business, page 19
Proper noun capitalized: Walkaway
Walkaway
- A small town in the City of Greater Geraldton, Western Australia.
Examples of walkaway in a sentence
- This always involves the risk of walkaways, which should not be confused with an escape from an institution with extreme security.1968, W. T. McGrath, chapter 20, in Report of the Alberta Penology Study, page 129:
- “This race is a walkaway for King Neptune.1945, H. Allen Smith, chapter 20, in Low Man on a Totem Pole, page 178:
- To be a winner, you have to win the close games—they all won’t be walkaways.1996, Francis J. Fitzgerald, editor, The Year the Panthers Roared, page 64:
Synonyms of walkaway
- walkover
- bottom line
- closed-end lease
- catwalk
- hand-over-hand
- stamp-and-go
Forms of walkaway
| plural | walkaways |
|---|---|
| alternative form | walk-away |
Origin of walkaway
Deverbal from walk away.
A corruption of an Aborigine term, wagga wah.
Questions about walkaway
- What does walkaway mean?
- Walkaway means a case of a person walking away (e.g. an inmate from a facility, a cult member from a community); a person who walks away.
- How do you use walkaway in a sentence?
- This always involves the risk of walkaways, which should not be confused with an escape from an institution with extreme security.
- What part of speech is walkaway?
- Walkaway can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of walkaway?
- The plural of walkaway is walkaways.
Words near walkaway in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: walkaway (page history and authors); Walkaway (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:
Cite this entry: “walkaway.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/walkaway. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.