French leave

This article is about the type of departure. For other uses, see French leave (disambiguation).
Article from the December 29, 1825 edition of the National Gazette and Literary Register published in Philadelphia reporting that Missouri Senator "Col. Palmer (Martin Parmer) is said to have taken French leave and gone to Texas".

A French leave, sometimes French exit, Irish goodbye or Irish exit, is a departure from a location or event without informing others or without seeking approval.[1] Examples include relatively innocuous acts such as leaving a party without bidding farewell in order to avoid disturbing or upsetting the host, or more problematic acts such as a soldier leaving his post without authorization.[2]

The first attestation of the phrase in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1751, a time when the English and French cultures were heavily interlinked.

In French, the equivalent phrase is filer à l'anglaise ("to leave English style")[3] and seems to date from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.[4]

  1. ^ Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Millennium Edition; London: Cassell, 1999)
  2. ^ Parkinson, Judy (2000). From Hue & Cry to Humble Pie. Michael O'Mara Books. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-7607-3581-7.
  3. ^ Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day, September 8, 2008. http://wordsmith.org/words/chinese_puzzle.html
  4. ^ "Filer à l'anglaise". Francparler. Retrieved September 7, 2012.