fly the coop

fly the coop idiom
Escape, run away, as in After years of fighting with my mother, my father finally flew the coop. This term originally meant “escape from jail,” known as the coop in underworld slang since the late 1700s. [Late 1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Comments
Improve this definition.
Do you have more to add? Share your linguistic knowledge or observation.
/Register to save your comments.