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View synonyms for take a powder

take a powder

  1. To make a quick departure: “When he saw the police coming, the thief decided to take a powder.”


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Idioms and Phrases

Make a speedy departure, run away, as in I looked around and he was gone—he'd taken a powder . This slangy idiom may be derived from the British dialect sense of powder as “a sudden hurry,” a usage dating from about 1600. It may also allude to the explosive quality of gunpowder.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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