to move away in flight: to flee, roam as a fugitive, flutter off, or be driven from one's place
This verb pictures a body pulling away from where it was and moving off. The pull can be sudden and fearful, as when soldiers break and run or a city empties before an invader. It can be the natural rising of a bird that leaves its nest, or the drifting of a homeless person with nowhere to settle. In every case the eye is on the departure itself, the going away, more than on any place the mover is heading toward.
Because the picture is so simple, one word stretches across scenes that English keeps in separate boxes. The same verb carries a fugitive across the countryside, sends birds and locusts into the air, and even describes sleep slipping away from a wakeful person's eyes at night. A related use turns the action outward: to make something flee, to chase or drive it off, so that the wicked are thrust away like a bad dream.
What holds the senses together is motion away under pressure. Whether the mover flees, wanders, flutters, or is chased, the word marks the moment of leaving, and often the helplessness or restlessness that goes with having no fixed place to stay.