Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English - escape

~1 v 1 »PERSON/PLACE« to get away from a place when someone is trying to catch you or stop you leaving  (Anyone trying to escape will be shot!) + from/through/over etc  (Two men have escaped from Durham jail.) escape sb's clutches (=escape from them)  (They managed to escape the clutches of the Nazis and flee to Switzerland.) 2 »DANGER« to get away from a dangerous situation that is likely to harm you if you do not leave  (Only four people managed to escape before the roof collapsed.)  (escape from/through/into etc)  (The dog escaped through the back window of the bus.)  (escape sth)  (refugees escaping war and famine) 3 »GAS/LIQUID ETC« if gas, liquid, light, heat etc escapes from somewhere, it comes out when you do not want it to  (Screw the top back firmly to prevent any fumes escaping.) 4 »AVOID« to succeed in avoiding being involved in a unpleasant, difficult, or dangerous situation  (The back seat passengers escaped death by inches.) 5 »SOUND« if a sound escapes from someone's mouth, they accidentally make that sound 6 escape sb's attention/notice if something escapes your attention or notice, you do not see it or realize that it is there 7 the name/date/title escapes me spoken used when you cannot remember something  (I've met him before, but his name escapes me.) 8 there's no escaping (the fact) used to emphasize that something is definitely important or will definitely happen  (There's no escaping the fact that she did actually lie to you.) - escaped adj only before noun  (escaped prisoners) ~2 n 1 the act of getting away from a place where you do not want to be, or from an unpleasant or dangerous situation  (They had been planning their escape for months.) + from  (the story of Papillon's daring escape from Devil's Island | make your escape)  (The party was boring - we couldn't wait to make our escape. | a lucky escape (=a situation in which you were lucky to have avoided something unpleasant)) 2 a way of getting away from an unpleasant situation, especially by doing something else to avoid thinking about it  (Teenagers turn to drugs as a form of escape.) 3 an escape of gas/liquid etc an amount of gas, liquid etc that comes out of the place where it is being kept as a result of an accident  (escapes of radiation from the generating plant)  (- see also fire escape)