French leave

This article is about the type of departure. For other uses, see French leave (disambiguation).

French leave (sometimes a French exit, an Irish goodbye or an Irish exit, or in French a filer à l'anglaise) is a departure from a location or event without informing others or without seeking approval. Examples include relatively innocuous acts such as leaving a party without bidding farewell in order to avoid disturbing or upsetting the host, or more problematic acts such as a soldier leaving his post without authorization.

The first attestation of the phrase in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1751, a time when the English and French cultures were heavily interlinked.

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