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fleeing

verb

present participle of flee
1
as in disappearing
to cease to be visible the fog fled with the arrival of the dawn

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in escaping
to get free from a dangerous or confining situation a murderer who fled on foot

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in retreating
to hasten away from something dangerous or frightening a toddler who fled when the ladybug he had been quietly watching suddenly began flying around the room

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 fleeing The painting belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer who was fleeing the Netherlands for England on a ship in 1940 during World War II. — Hikmat Mohammed, ARTnews.com, 23 Sep. 2026 This type of maritime migration is different from the once-common arrivals of rafts and other homemade vessels that Cubans are known to use to escape their homeland, and the overloaded freighters and sailboats used by people fleeing Haiti. — David Goodhue, Miami Herald, 22 Sep. 2026 The intruder was last seen fleeing in a direction away from the farm. — J. B. MacKinnon, Harpers Magazine, 22 Sep. 2026 And certainly those subjects could be, in other hands, a vehicle for fleeing the urgencies of the here and now. — Robert P. Baird, New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2026 During the pursuit, both the officer and the fleeing motorcyclist were involved in a crash with another vehicle on Texas 114, just west of Interstate 35W, police said. — Shambhavi Rimal, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 Sep. 2026 His memoir, released Tuesday, details his early life fleeing Vietnam with his father, time in refugee camps, his life as a child actor and his triumphant return to the screen. — Isabelle Farina, Variety, 20 Sep. 2026 Investigators believe Spencer killed Macy before fleeing into the surrounding forest. — Brandon Downs, CBS News, 20 Sep. 2026 During the 1980s, Los Angeles saw another influx of Latin American immigration, including Mexicans and Central Americans fleeing poverty and war. — Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sep. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fleeing
  1. disappearing
  2. escaping
  3. retreating
  4. vanishing
  5. flying
  6. bolting
  7. fading
  8. running
Verb
  • According to this data, starting in the 1990s, ice began disappearing more intensely.
    — Chelsea Gohd, Space.com, 23 Sep. 2026
  • Our little aluminum dinghy drifted too close to a herd of hippos, and the dominant male glowered at us before disappearing menacingly below the surface.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 22 Sep. 2026
Definition of disappearing
Verb
  • The victim can be seen running full speed away from a man chasing him down with a knife before escaping into a building in a harrowing video taken from a surveillance camera, posted on X by Crown Heights Shmira.
    — Roni Jacobson, New York Daily News, 24 Sep. 2026
  • There’s no escaping the feeling of this mass, and no magic feats of engineering, like with Rivian or various German automakers, will mask this.
    — Joel Feder, The Drive, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of escaping
Verb
  • The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is now retreating up to 164 feet (50 meters) a day, Otosaka said.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 16 Sep. 2026
  • The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is now retreating up to 164 feet a day, Otosaka said.
    — Seth Borenstein, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sep. 2026
Definition of retreating
Verb
  • The rapidly approaching future and vanishing past are all around her, which Horgan embodies beautifully in a brief but wrenching scene when Ruari first leaves for school.
    — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 18 Sep. 2026
  • In a union hall near Youngstown, retirees describe decades of vanishing factory jobs as Sherrod Brown bets economic anger, war in Iran fallout and AI data centers can fuel his Senate comeback.
    — Joey Cappelletti, Los Angeles Times, 17 Sep. 2026
Definition of vanishing
Verb
  • Or two weeks ago, flying to Frieze Seoul, 37 hours there and back, after a trip to the East Coast and Europe that was another 42.
    — Lane Brown, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2026
  • Nearly $2 billion from venture capital investors has underpinned Zipline’s global business that has grown from flying medical supplies to food delivery for Uber.
    — Alexander Onukwue, semafor.com, 22 Sep. 2026
Definition of flying
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
  • Long before the Ellisons arrived on the scene, Pluto’s star had started fading as rivals Tubi and Roku became more popular.
    — Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 21 Sep. 2026
  • The film’s cast is mostly made up of tribal non-actors, but Anghlong Konyak is its captivating center, as a man whose stubbornness against change sits alongside a lingering grief over his fading way of life.
    — Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 20 Sep. 2026
Definition of fading
Verb
  • The finding resolves a long-running question about the material’s electrical behavior.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 26 Sep. 2026
  • By 2020, however, it had been reduced to a century-and-a-half-old ruin running a mile along the River Lee and in the midst of condo conversion.
    — Robert Sullivan, Vogue, 26 Sep. 2026
Definition of running

Browse Nearby Words

fleecy
fleeing
flees
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Cite this Entry

“Fleeing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fleeing. Accessed 27 Sep. 2026.

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