take to the hills
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to flee or escape quickly
Literally: to go to the hills
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ Obviously if Noriega is captured or killed, that would take the stuffing out of his remaining support,’ Mr Record said.
George took to the hills and went to seek solace with his younger brother.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “take to the hills” mean?
to flee or escape quickly Literally: to go to the hills
Is “take to the hills” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.