To leave, to withdraw. Originally meaning to empty water from a boat using a can or other container, a usage from the early 1600s. Three centuries later, it was transferred to parachuting out of an airplane. Two colloquial senses appeared in the 1900s, both of which can be considered clichés. The first, to bail someone out, means to rescue someone or something, especially from a financial problem. Thus “The opera company was looking for a wealthy donor to bail them out.” The second means to leave or abandon something, as in “No point in waiting any longer to see the doctor, so I’m bailing out now.” And appearing as the noun bailout, the term has been used particularly often with regard to corporations and countries in financial difficulties, as in “In September 2008, as stock markets plunged and credit markets around the globe seized up, Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke came up with a proposal for a sweeping $700 billion bailout of the nation’s financial institutions” (New York Times, July 1, 2010).