Hideout: Where People Go When They Cannot Be Found
A hideout is a place used to hide, usually by people avoiding the authorities. A hideaway is the same idea with better scenery.
A hideout is a place where someone hides, and the word carries a whiff of crime: gangsters, fugitives, rebels. Its gentler twin is *hideaway*, which means the same physical thing but suggests a cottage and a book rather than a stolen car.
- A place used for hiding. *A hideout in the hills.*
- Hideaway — a private retreat. *A weekend hideaway.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | hideout | A secret hideout. |
| Plural | hideouts | Several hideouts. |
| Verb phrase | hide out | They hid out for weeks. |
| Related | hideaway | A country hideaway. |
| Related | safe house | Moved to a safe house. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Police found the hideout in a disused barn.News writing.
- The children built a hideout in the garden.Innocent use, common with children.
- They hid out until the search was called off.Two words for the verb.
Places to disappear
- Hideout — used by someone avoiding capture
- Hideaway — a private and pleasant retreat
- Safe house — a protected address, often official
- Bolthole — a British word for somewhere to escape to
- Den — an animal's home, or an informal room
A twentieth-century American noun from the phrasal verb *hide out*. *Hide* itself is Old English, and it shares no ancestry with the *hide* that means animal skin.
Hideout or hideaway?
A hideout is where you avoid being caught. A hideaway is where you avoid being disturbed.
Is *bolthole* British?
Yes. It comes from the second exit of a rabbit's burrow, kept for emergencies.