vamoose

English

Etymology

Alteration of Spanish vamos (we go) or vámonos (let's go). Cognate with English namous.

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Verb

vamoose (third-person singular simple present vamooses, present participle vamoosing, simple past and past participle vamoosed)

  1. (transitive, intransitive, slang) To run away (from); to flee.
    • 1905, Wisconsin Alumni Magazine, volume 7, page 218:
      Speaking of the room in which I locked McIndoe — I will preface by saying that Mac "vamoosed that ranch" that very day and left me alone.
    • 2015, Good-Feel, Yoshi's Woolly World, Wii U, Nintendo, level name:
      World 6-3: Vamoose the Lava Sluice!
  2. (intransitive, slang) To hurry.
    • 1958 December 24, “'Sundown' Policy Is Alleged”, in The World, Coos Bay, Oregon, sourced from United Press, via Newspapers.com, page 2:
      Some members of civil rights organizations present said they have heard that Negroes seeking housing in the [sundown] towns had been intimidated and that 'vamoose' warnings have been in vogue for the past year.
    • 1966, Lita Grey Chaplin, Morton Cooper, My Life with Chaplin, New York: B. Geis Associates, →ISBN, page 190:
      He's got a wife who'll never give him a divorce. She knows about me, but it's still understood that when she decides to go to the ranch for a week or a weekend, I've got to vamoose.
    • 1992, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, “A Fistful of Datas”, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 6, episode 8:
      "Vamoose, you little varmint."

Alternative forms

Synonyms

Translations

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