Dictionary

walk away en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (idiomatic) To withdraw from a problematic situation.
   • Green adds: "Luckily, nobody did walk away. Railtrack stayed with it, so did the government, so did the Strategic Rail Authority. 2022 September 21, Chris Green tells Nick Brodrick, “It's absolutely my favourite train”, in RAIL, number 966, page 35:
   • Company lawyers told him to walk away from the deal.
   • When John Lithgow was announced as Dumbledore, he revealed that a friend had sent him a link to an article entitled: “An open letter to John Lithgow: Please walk away from Harry Potter.” 2025 June 11, Stuart Heritage, “‘Please walk away from Harry Potter’: why the stars of HBO’s new TV show are in for decades of social media hell”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 21 Jul 2025:
2. (colloquial, euphemistic, intransitive) Of an object, to go missing or be stolen.
3. To free oneself from a debt such as a mortgage by abandoning the collateral to the lender. To make a strategic default.
4. (idiomatic) To survive a challenging or dangerous situation without harm.
   • The football team walked away with a 1-0 victory.
5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, away.
   • I took one last look at the house and walked away.
   • Shepard: Mordin, walk away. Mordin: Can't do that, Shepard. Shepard: I don't have a choice here. Walk away, or I will fire. 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Tuchanka:

Forms

Deriveds

walk away from · walk away with

Relateds

walk-away · walkaway

Translations (1)

nys yuragool wat (to withdraw from a problematic situation, including literally)