leave the nest
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.05 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To leave home; to stop living with one's parents.
verb
To become independent; to begin to act without supervision or in ways that are not prescribed.
verb
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see leave, nest.
Example Sentences
- "At about the time that the last child is leaving the nest, elderly parents move to a point of needing assistance in their lives."
- "Soon after our last son left the nest, we decided to cash in some of our frequent flyer points for a summer vacation in Europe."
- "I never left home - I married directly after I finished my university studies, and now that my own sons are leaving the nest, starting their own lives, I've realised that I never 'left home'."
- "He taught, seasoned, encouraged, and broadened all of us while we were his students, and he supported us greatly after we had left the nest."
- "Among the greatest physician-scientists of our time, Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein argue that the trainee is ready to leave the nest when she or he has acquired technical courage, a sufficient set of skills and experience and self-confidence to develop new tools when the need arises."
- "I was coming into my own, leaving the nest, combining “old school” techniques with fresh ideas. Reinshagen taught the Simandl method, but its limitations created problems that I have not resolved even to this day."