away

/əweɪ/13 verbsVowel-initial — links backwards

Something moves off, vanishes, or keeps going steadily.

AWAY is departure and disappearance: throw away, give away, pass away, run away.

It has one surprising sense — sustained activity (work away, chat away) — where the distance is in time rather than space.

What it does to the sound

AWAY begins on an unstressed schwa, so the verb links straight into it and the first syllable nearly disappears: throw away is “throw-wuh-WAY”, with the stress on the final syllable.

What AWAY means

Departure — move off from here

Physical distance opens up.

run away get awaygo awaybreak away

Disposal — get rid of permanently

Something leaves your possession for good.

throw away give away put awayclear away

Disappearance — fade to nothing

Gentle, often euphemistic, vanishing.

pass awayfade awaymelt away

Every verb that takes AWAY

The complete list — 13 of them. The section above groups the common ones by what AWAY is doing.

The particle AWAY — what it does to a verb