do a moonlight flit

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do a moonlight flit

To depart hastily at night, typically to avoid paying money that one owes. I can't afford the rent this month, so we need to do a moonlight flit!

do a moonlight flit

make a hurried, usually nocturnal, removal or change of abode, especially in order to avoid paying your rent. informal

Make a moonlight flitting is recorded from the early 19th century and appears to have originated in northern England or Scotland. The expression is now often shortened to do a moonlight .

do a moonlight ˈflit

(British English, informal) leave the place where you have been living in quickly and secretly, usually to avoid paying your debts, rent, etc: When I called to get the money she owed me, I found she’d done a moonlight flit.

See also: flit, moonlight

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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References in periodicals archive ?

RECENT stories in the Examiner in regard to the Hunter Group waste site have prompted this letter - it appears that once again Kirklees has been quite satisfied to let this matter run on and on until surprise, surprise the company has done a moonlight flit.

Too slow to take action

One landlord said that a previous tenant had done a moonlight flit owing several month's rent and the property was left in such a state that it had to be professionally cleaned, repaired and redecorated before he could rent it again.

Bad tenants, bad landlords; Letters

One landlord said a previous tenant had done a moonlight flit owing several month's rent and the property was left in such a state it had to be professionally cleaned, repaired and redecorated before he could re-rent it.

There are good and bad eggs

Just this year ITV proudly declared it was "where laughter lives", shortly before unleashing a Monday night comedy double bill that suggested laughter may have done a moonlight flit.

Pride in cheap and lazy TV like this? Now that IS risky

If they couldn't pay their arrears he'd send along the bailiffs, but as often as not they'd already done a moonlight flit.

A taste of The Girl From Hockley

Scoring off the Conservatives for having done a moonlight flit after a period which he called 'a well-nigh unbroken expanse of mismanagement', Campbell-Bannerman called an election for early in the New Year.