escape

Escape comes from Vulgar Latin's excappare, meaning "to get out of one's cape, get away." From that emerged escaper in Old North French, which then passed into English as escapen and finally, escape. The word's current meanings include not only "to break loose from confinement, get free," but also "to interrupt a command, exit a program, or change levels within a program by pressing the escape key." The latter definition is a long way from people ditching their cloaks to get away from pursuers, but now a wonderful image comes to mind when I hit the escape key.

-Information from the American Heritage Dictionary