Ele fugiu de casa ontem.

Fugiu comes from the verb fugir, which means to flee, to run away, or sometimes to escape depending on context.

In this sentence, fugiu is in the pretérito perfeito (the simple past), third person singular:

• eu fugi = I ran away
• ele/ela fugiu = he/she ran away

So Ele fugiu de casa ontem means that the action was completed in the past.

This is a very common question.

In Portuguese, casa often appears without an article when it means home in a general, personal sense.

So:

• de casa = from home
• em casa = at home
• para casa = home / to home

But da casa means from the house, referring more to a specific building or physical house.

Compare:

• Ele fugiu de casa. = He ran away from home.
• Ele fugiu da casa. = He fled from the house.

So in your sentence, de casa is the natural choice because the meaning is from home, not just from a house.

Yes, but the most natural reading is usually ran away from home.

Because of the expression de casa without an article, Brazilian Portuguese speakers will normally understand it as from home. That often suggests a situation like:

• a child or teenager leaving home
• someone abandoning home suddenly
• someone running away from family life

If you wanted to stress the idea of escaping from a specific building, da casa might be more likely.

You could say Fugiu de casa ontem, because Portuguese often leaves out subject pronouns when the subject is understood from context.

However, there is an important detail: fugiu is a third-person singular form, so it could mean:

• he ran away
• she ran away
• you ran away (formal você)

Because of that, adding ele makes the subject clear.

So:

• Ele fugiu de casa ontem. = clearly he
• Fugiu de casa ontem. = depends on context

Ontem means yesterday, and its position is fairly flexible.

Putting it at the end is very natural:

• Ele fugiu de casa ontem.

But you could also say:

• Ontem ele fugiu de casa.
• Ele ontem fugiu de casa. — possible, though less neutral in many contexts

The end position is common because it keeps the sentence simple and natural: subject + verb + complement + time expression.

Yes, absolutely.

Ontem ele fugiu de casa is also correct and natural. Starting with ontem puts a little more focus on when it happened.

Very roughly:

• Ele fugiu de casa ontem. = neutral statement
• Ontem ele fugiu de casa. = a bit more emphasis on yesterday

Both are common in Brazilian Portuguese.

Both can sometimes be translated as to escape, but they are not always identical.

Fugir often suggests:

• running away
• fleeing from a situation, place, or danger
• leaving home, prison, responsibility, etc.

Escapar often suggests:

• managing to get away
• escaping from confinement or danger
• slipping out of control

In the expression fugir de casa, fugir is the normal verb for run away from home.

A learner should strongly remember:

• fugir de casa = to run away from home

That is a very standard expression.

In Brazilian Portuguese, fugiu is pronounced approximately like foo-JEE-oo, but smoothly, not as three fully separated English syllables.

A rough guide:

• fu sounds like foo
• giu sounds roughly like zhee-oo or jee-oo, depending on accent and how you hear it

The stress is on the last syllable:

• fu-GIU

If helpful, think of it as:

• fu-GIU

The gi before u has the soft sound heard in Portuguese words like girar.

Because ontem is an adverb, not a noun.

It simply means yesterday, and adverbs like this do not take articles in normal use.

So you say:

• ontem = yesterday
• hoje = today
• amanhã = tomorrow

Not:

• o ontem
• o hoje
• o amanhã

at least not in normal time expressions.

No. Fugiu is a completed past action: he ran away.

If you want was running away, Brazilian Portuguese would usually use an imperfect or progressive structure, depending on context, such as:

• Ele fugia de casa. = He used to run away from home / He was running away from home
• Ele estava fugindo de casa. = He was running away from home

So:

• fugiu = ran away
• estava fugindo = was running away

Yes, but in this structure it most naturally means home.

Portuguese casa can mean both house and home, and context decides the meaning. In the expression de casa, the idea is usually from home.

That is why a direct word-for-word translation can be misleading. Even though casa often means house, de casa in many everyday sentences is better understood as from home.

Yes. The verb fugir commonly uses the preposition de.

Examples:

• fugir de casa = run away from home
• fugir da polícia = flee from the police
• fugir do perigo = flee from danger
• fugir de alguém = run away from someone

So in your sentence, de is exactly what you should expect after fugir.

Yes, it sounds completely natural.

Ele fugiu de casa ontem is a normal, clear Brazilian Portuguese sentence. It uses:

• a common subject pronoun
• a common past tense form
• a very natural expression, fugir de casa
• a normal time word, ontem

So it is a good example sentence for learning both grammar and a useful expression.