odejít / odcházet — to leave, to depart (on foot) | Czech Grammar

If při- ("toward") gives you arrival (přijít / přicházet), then its opposite is od- ("away from"), which gives you departure: odejít / odcházet, "to leave, to set off, to go away (on foot)." The two prefixes are a matched pair — one points at the destination, the other points back at the place you are abandoning — and the verbs they build are conjugated identically. Learn this pair right after the arrival pair and you have both ends of every journey covered. This page gives both full paradigms and the prepositions of leaving: z + genitive and od + genitive.

How the pair is built — and how it mirrors přijít

The mechanism is exactly the one behind every prefixed motion verb. Take imperfective jít, add the spatial prefix od- ("away"), and the prefix makes it perfective: odejít = "to leave (once, completed)." To get the imperfective back — for leaving as a process or a habit — Czech rebuilds on the chodit-stem, lengthened to -cház-: odcházet.

Prefix	Direction	Perfective	Imperfective
při-	toward (arrival)	přijít	přicházet
od-	away (departure)	odejít	odcházet

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od- literally means "away from," and it is the same little word as the preposition od ("from"). That is your memory hook: odejít = to go od (away from) somewhere. The prefix and the preposition reinforce each other — odejít od stolu, "to get up from the table."

odejít — perfective (one completed departure)

The present stem is odejd-, and since the verb is perfective, these forms carry future meaning: odejdu = "I will leave."

Person	odejít — present forms = FUTURE
já	odejdu
ty	odejdeš
on / ona / ono	odejde
my	odejdeme
vy	odejdete
oni / ony / ona	odejdou

The past tense uses the suppletive š-root of jít — the form to flag is odešel. As with šel and přišel, the masculine singular is the only form that keeps the -e-; it drops everywhere else.

Past (l-participle)	Imperative
odešel (m. sg.), odešla (f. sg.), odešlo (n. sg.)	odejdi (ty)
odešli (m. anim. pl.), odešly (fem. pl.), odešla (neut. pl.)	odejděme (let's) / odejděte (vy)

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The neuter plural is odešla (-a), not odešly. The -ly ending is feminine plural only (holky odešly). A neuter plural subject takes -a: děvčata odešla, auta odjela. There is no exception to this in the whole verb system.

Odejdu ze schůze dřív, mám v sedm vlak.

I'll leave the meeting early, I've got a train at seven.

Odešel jsem z práce v pět a šel rovnou domů.

I left work at five and went straight home. (male speaker — odešel)

Odešla bez jediného slova, ani se neotočila.

She left without a single word, didn't even turn round. (female speaker — odešla)

Obě děvčata už odešla domů.

Both girls have already gone home. (neuter plural děvčata → odešla)

odcházet — imperfective (leaving as a process or habit)

odcházet is a regular Class IV (-í-) verb, with a budu + infinitive future.

Person	Present	Future
já	odcházím	budu odcházet
ty	odcházíš	budeš odcházet
on / ona / ono	odchází	bude odcházet
my	odcházíme	budeme odcházet
vy	odcházíte	budete odcházet
oni / ony / ona	odcházejí	budou odcházet

Past (l-participle)	Imperative
odcházel / odcházela / odcházelo	odcházej (ty)
odcházeli (m. anim.), odcházely (fem. pl.), odcházela (neut. pl.)	odcházejme / odcházejte

Use odcházet for leaving that is in progress (you can watch it happening), habitual (you do it every day), or gradual (a crowd thinning out).

Z práce odcházím obvykle kolem šesté.

I usually leave work around six. (habit — imperfective)

Diváci pomalu odcházeli, koncert už skončil.

The audience was slowly leaving, the concert was over. (gradual process — imperfective)

Zrovna odcházím z domu, budu tam za chvíli.

I'm just leaving the house, I'll be there in a bit. (in progress right now)

Where from: z and od

Departure needs a source. Czech splits it the same way it splits arrival, just pointing the other direction:

Preposition	Case	Used for	Example
z / ze	genitive	out of an enclosed place / institution	odejít z práce — to leave work
od / ode	genitive	away from a person or a landmark	odejít od babičky — to leave Grandma's

The pairing is tidy: you arrive do a place but leave z it; you arrive k a person but leave od them. z and od are the mirror images of do and k.

Odešel z firmy po deseti letech.

He left the company after ten years. (z + genitive — an institution)

Neodcházej ode mě, prosím tě.

Don't leave me, please. (od + genitive — a person; ode mě)

Odejdi od toho okna, táhne tam.

Get away from that window, there's a draught. (od + genitive — a landmark)

odejít as "to quit / to pass away"

Two figurative uses are worth meeting now. odejít z práce / ze zaměstnání is the standard way to say someone quit a job (left it for good), and odejít alone, especially odejít navždy, is a gentle euphemism for dying — the same softening English does with "he passed away." (literary / euphemistic)

Odešel ze zaměstnání a založil si vlastní firmu.

He left his job and started his own company.

Dědeček tiše odešel ve spánku.

Grandpa passed away quietly in his sleep. (euphemistic odejít = to die)

How this differs from English

English packs departure into "leave," "go away," "set off," "quit," and decides the nuance with adverbs and context. Czech makes one structural choice up front — odejít for the completed departure, odcházet for the process or habit — and then a second choice of preposition, z for places and od for people. The arrival pair přijít / přicházet runs on exactly the same rails in the opposite direction, so the two together cost you only one idea: prefix sets the direction and the aspect; the chodit-stem rebuilds the imperfective.

Common Mistakes

❌ Budu odejít v pět.

Incorrect — perfective odejít has no budu-future; odejdu is already future.

✅ Odejdu v pět.

I'll leave at five.

❌ Každý den odejdu z práce v šest.

Incorrect — a daily habit needs the imperfective odcházím, not the perfective odejdu.

✅ Každý den odcházím z práce v šest.

I leave work at six every day.

❌ Odešel od práce.

Incorrect — you leave OUT OF an institution with z, not od: z práce.

✅ Odešel z práce.

He left work.

❌ Holky odešla domů.

Incorrect — holky is feminine plural and needs -ly: odešly. The -a form is for neuter plurals.

✅ Holky odešly domů a auta odjela.

The girls went home and the cars drove off. (fem. pl. odešly vs neut. pl. odjela)

Key Takeaways

od- + jít → odejít (perfective, one departure); the imperfective rebuilds on the chodit-stem: odcházet.
odejít has no budu-future: odejdu already means "I will leave." Past masculine odešel keeps an -e- that drops everywhere else.
Neuter plural past is odešla (-a); -ly (odešly) is feminine plural only.
Source preposition: z
- genitive for places/institutions, od
  - genitive for people and landmarks — the mirror images of do and k.
Figurative: odejít z práce = to quit a job; odejít alone = a gentle euphemism for dying.

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