Running away quickly from danger, pursuit, or an undesirable situation. The present participle of 'flee.'
From Old English 'flēon,' related to Old Norse 'flýja' and Gothic 'þliuhan.' The word has maintained its core meaning of rapid escape across Germanic languages for over a millennium.
The word 'flee' is one of the few English verbs that retains the ancient Germanic strong verb pattern, changing its vowel in the past tense (fled) rather than adding '-ed' like most modern verbs.
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