give someone the slip
idiom

- to escape from someone

(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

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Slip derives from the Middle Low German "slippen," (modern High German "schleifen") meaning to "glide or slide." It is used in a wide variety of contexts such as:

- to move smoothly, easily and quietly (He slipped into the room while no one was looking)

- to pass gradually or without noticing (It's already time to quit work. The day really slipped by fast.)

- to lose one's balance, to slide (He slipped on the stairs and hurt his ankle)

- to decline from a prior level (Wall Street stocks slipped more than 1 percent today)

- to put on or remove clothing (Better slip on a sweater. It's cool outside today.)

- to make a mistake (We can't afford to slip up and give management the wrong information)

- to escape (He slipped away before the police showed up)

This last sense, as in "to escape" is the origin of the idiom "give someone the slip," which has been in use since the 16th century. In this case slip is used as a noun and is synonymous with escape. Slip is also used in several other idioms:

- slip through one's fingers = to slide through and out of one's grasp (The antique vase slipped through his fingers and crashed to the floor)

- slip through someone's fingers = (in a figurative sense) to escape (The shoplifter slipped through security's fingers and was never caught)

- a slip of the tongue = to make a mistake when speaking (I didn't want to offend you - it was just a slip of the tongue)

- slip through the cracks = to be neglected or forgotten (The software error slipped through the cracks before we were able to detect it.

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SYNONYMS

beat it, escape from, flee from, fly the coop, hightail it, run off, sneak away, steal away

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like

"I GAVE HIM THE SLIP before he was able to tell me another one of his awful jokes."