spirit away

English

WOTD – 27 March 2007

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈspɪɹ.ɪt əˌweɪ/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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Verb

spirit away (third-person singular simple present spirits away, present participle spiriting away, simple past and past participle spirited away)

1. (transitive) To remove without anyone's noticing.

   The paintings were spirited away under cover of darkness.

2. (transitive) To carry off through the agency of a spirit or through some magical means.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 156:

     "But far up in the country, in the mountain districts, we still often hear of fairies having been seen, of their spiriting people away into the mountains, and such like.

Translations

to spirit away

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 偷走 (zh) (tōuzǒu)

• Danish: trylle væk
• Finnish: viedä salaa, kadota jäljettömiin
• Hungarian: eltüntet (hu)
• Italian: far sparire nel nulla, far svanire nel nulla
• Japanese: ^{(please verify)} 神隠す (かみかくす, kamikakusu; かみがくす, kamigakusu)
• Korean: 유괴하다 (ko) (yugoehada)
• Russian: чтобы исчезнуть в воздухе (štoby isčeznutʹ v vozduxe), умыкать (ru) pf (umykatʹ)