bugging out

verb

present participle of bug out
1
as in retreating
to hasten away from something dangerous or frightening the ground soldiers bugged out just before the start of the aerial bombing

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in departing
to leave a place often for another the strange visitor bugged out without so much as saying a word

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of bugging out There’s a wonderful small moment midway through the season where Reilly’s lightly bugging out in his dingy apartment, shaking out his limbs at sharp, insectile angles to get comfortable. — Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 26 May 2026 Her baby's father answered the door with his eyes bugging out, and Frierson barged in to find two other guys, needles, spoons and powder on the table. — Brad Schmitt, The Tennessean, 21 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bugging out
  1. retreating
  2. departing
  3. fleeing
  4. exiting
  5. flying
  6. moving
  7. bolting
  8. running along
Verb
  • Gabriel Moreno hit an RBI single in the fourth and, after Kyle Hart walked the bases loaded in the sixth, Perdomo cleared them with a double that bounced off the glove of retreating center fielder Jackson Merrill and then off the padded fence.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 26 Sep. 2026
  • The brand has been retreating by the month back to its roots in Florida.
    — Joe Kinsey OutKick, FOXNews.com, 25 Sep. 2026
Definition of retreating
Verb
  • Thanksgiving The most expensive and popular day when departing for the holiday is Wednesday.
    — Ayesha Ali, ABC News, 26 Sep. 2026
  • On the heels of Steven Kolb departing the Council of Fashion Designers of America, CFDA vice chair Aurora James and her nonprofit, the Fifteen Percent Pledge, have been sued for fraud.
    — Shane O’Neill, Washington Post, 25 Sep. 2026
Definition of departing
Verb
  • Witnesses to the March 8 shooting reported seeing a white Tesla Model 3 with a paper license plate fleeing the scene.
    — Nancy Dillon, Rolling Stone, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Attorneys for Carter, who is Black, have said witnesses saw a White man fleeing the crime scene and that an investigator suppressed evidence that could implicate other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen.
    — Landon Mion, FOXNews.com, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of fleeing
Verb
  • Sally Habbershaw is exiting Mediawan after less than a year to become President of Global Distribution at the BBC’s commercial arm.
    — Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 25 Sep. 2026
  • Sharon Levy is exiting Banijay’s Endemol Shine North America after nearly a decade at the company — including most recently as CEO.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 25 Sep. 2026
Definition of exiting
Verb
  • The move would allow milder, natural kratom products to continue flying under regulatory radar.
    — Theresa Gaffney, STAT, 30 Sep. 2026
  • SpaceX wants to ensure that everything works before flying Starship back to Starbase.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of flying
Verb
  • The seconds-long loop consists of a purple image of a tank silhouette moving rapidly across the picture plane and patterned with what resemble dithered approximations of analog video interference.
    — Simon Denny, Artforum, 1 Oct. 2026
  • The planning is meant to create flexibility for the president and commanders overseeing the war, these people said, by moving up to three aircraft carriers and their escort ships into the region in November.
    — Dan Lamothe, Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of moving
Verb
  • Now every SaaS company that spent the last three years bolting AI features onto legacy infrastructure just got very expensive news.
    — Rafael Flores, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2026
  • San Francisco is still bolting new pieces together, including fitting Mike Evans into the offense on the fly.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sep. 2026
Definition of bolting
Verb
  • Warm water running over, the feel of the grains between my hands, the sound of it like stones running along the pavement.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 17 Sep. 2026
  • That money paid for the brick promenade now running along the Choptank River.
    — Josh Davis, Baltimore Sun, 16 Sep. 2026
Definition of running along

Browse Nearby Words

bugging off
bugging out
buggy
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Bugging out.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bugging%20out. Accessed 2 Oct. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of heterodox

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

More Commonly Mispronounced Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

The Words of the Week - Oct. 2

16 Food Words Recently Added to the Dictionary
See More

Popular

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
name tags
Words Named After People Quiz Find out who’s behind "leotard," "morphine," an...
See All