Take a powder

This began as underworld slang. Originally the verb was simply to powder or powder out, meaning “to take in on the lam or flee.” In this form it is recorded as appearing before 1925. Some theorize that it is a variant of the earlier “dust” in such phrases as “dust out of here.” During the 1930s the phrase take a run out powder was common in gangster movies, and in 1940 John O’Hara’s Pal Joey wrote that he had to “take a powder out of here that day.”