From Vulgar Latin 'excappare' (to get out of one's cape) — slipping out of your cloak to flee a captor. Related to 'cape.'
Definition
To break free from confinement or control; to succeed in avoiding something dangerous or unpleasant.
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Latin13th centurywell-attested
From Middle English escapen, from Anglo-Norman eschaper, from Vulgar Latin *excappare, literally "to get out of one's cloak" — a compound of ex- (out of) + Late Latin cappa (cloak, cape). The image is vivid: a fugitive slips free by leaving their cloak in the captor's hands, like a lizard shedding its tail. Late Latin cappa itself maycome from a pre-Latin substrate or from PIE
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To 'escape' is literally to 'leave your capebehind.' Imagine being grabbed by your cloak — you slip out of it and run, leaving the captor holding an empty garment. Vulgar Latin '*excappāre' = 'ex-' (out of) + 'cappa' (cape). Thesame 'cappa' gives us 'cape,' 'cap,' and — more surprisingly — 'chapel': Saint Martin of Tours
immediate. By the 16th century "escape" could mean an inadvertent slip ("it escaped my attention"), elegantly inverting the original metaphor: instead of the person slipping away, the thought does. The computing sense (escape key, escape character) dates to the 1960s, preserving the core meaning of breaking free from a current context. Key roots: ex- (Latin: "out of"), cappa (Late Latin: "cloak, cape, hooded garment").
cut his military cloak (cappa) in half to share with a beggar, and the remaining half-cloak became a sacred relic kept in a shrine called a 'cappella' (little cloak-room). The