Away describes being at a distance from a particular place, or moving to become more distant from it. When you walk away from your house, you're getting farther from home with each step. When your dad drives away from the grocery store, the building gets smaller in the rearview mirror.

The word often suggests separation or absence. If your best friend moves away, they're no longer living nearby. When a teacher tells students to put their phones away, those phones need to go somewhere else, out of sight. Athletes play away games at their opponents' stadiums rather than their home field.

Away can also mean continuously or persistently. Someone might work away at a difficult puzzle for hours, chipping away at the problem bit by bit. A river wears away rock over thousands of years. In sports, when one team is winning by a lot, you might say they're running away with the game.

The word carries a sense of distance or removal: things that are away aren't here, they're somewhere else. Whether it's going away on vacation or explaining that someone is away from their desk, the word tells us about absence and separation from a starting point.