To leave means to go away from a place or person. When school ends, you leave the classroom. When your family takes a trip, you leave home for a few days. Sometimes leaving feels exciting, like when you leave for summer camp. Other times it feels hard, like saying goodbye when you leave a friend's house after a great afternoon together.

Leave also means to let something stay where it is or as it is. If you leave your backpack by the door, you put it there and don't move it. When a recipe tells you to leave the dough to rise, you're not abandoning it, you're letting it sit undisturbed. A teacher might ask you to leave your work on your desk so she can check it later.

The word appears in many common phrases. When you leave someone alone, you stop bothering them. When something leaves a mark, it creates a lasting impression or stain. To take leave of someone is a more formal way of saying goodbye. And leave can be a noun meaning permission to be away, like when a soldier gets leave to visit family, or time off from work, like sick leave.

The key to understanding leave is context. Whether you're departing, allowing something to remain, or taking time off, the word connects to the idea of separation or distance, either physical distance from a place or person, or the distance of letting something be.