Etymology: < escape v.; compare Old French eschap (perhaps the source in 14th cent.), Spanish escape.

Etymology: < French escape, earlier escappe (Godefroy), < Latin scapus : see scape n.²

Etymology: Middle English eschape is < Central Old French eschaper (modern French échapper ), and Middle English escape is < Old Northern French escaper (modern Picard écaper ), corresponding to Provençal escapar , Spanish escapar , Portuguese escapar , Italian scappare < late Latin type *excappāre , < ex out + cappa cloak. (For the sense, Diez compares Greek ἐκδύεσθαι to put off one's clothes, to escape.) The earliest forms recorded in English appear to be ascape v. (after the Old Northern French variant ascaper ) and the aphetic scape v.¹, which occur in 13th cent.; the former survived until 16th cent.; the latter continued in ordinary use until 17th cent., and as a poetic archaism (often written 'scape ) is still employed. In 14th cent. the forms of Central French origin, eschape , aschape v., aphetically schap(e at scape v.¹ Forms, chape v.², are of frequent occurrence, especially in northern writers, while in southern use the forms < Northern French, escape , ascape v., scape v.¹, were more common. After 15th cent. the former type is found only in Scottish writers, finally disappearing in 17th cent. The forms atscape v., ofscape v., occasional in 13–14th cent., appear to be due to a confusion of the initial a- in ascape with the prepositional prefix in synonymous English verbs. In French the verb échapper has always remained intransitive. The development of the transitive senses in English was assisted by the formal coincidence of the dative and the accusative; compare also such constructions as ‘to be banished the country’. Formerly the verb was often conjugated with be, not only when intransitive (as still sometimes archaic) but also when transitive.