Absent without leave

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Absent without leave

Meaning

Absent without permission.

Origin

Military origin. This has a long history in the British Navy and Army. For example, this from Viscount Horatio Nelson, in Dispatches and Letters, 1797:

"Five or six men absent without leave, who can not be 'Run' on the Ship's books, not having been absent three musters."

Note: 'to run' was to record someone as having deserted. The rules for this in the Royal Navy at the time were that a sailor was deemed to have deserted if he missed three roll calls.

AWOL is a term originating in the US military, as an acronym for 'Absent Without Official Leave'.

This is much later than 'absent without leave', and I can't find printed evidence of the acronym from before WWII. William Brohaugh's English Through the Ages, which is usually a reliable source, lists it as in use 'by 1920s', but without any citation. H. L. Mencken, in The American Language, 1945, records it as originating during the [American] Civil War, but again without hard evidence. He states:

"[In the Confederate Army] absences of short duration were often unpunished and in other cases offenders received such trivial sentences as reprimand by a company officer, digging a stump, carrying a rail for an hour or two, wearing a placard inscribed with the letters AWOL."