Hey…I gotta book…see y’all later.
I can’t find the origin of this usage.
Anyone know?
I never heard it as meaning ‘to leave’ but rather ‘to move’ or ‘to move quickly’.
Used it as a boy in SoCal in the early 1980s.
Doesn’t one book an airline or train passage?
Perhaps from the closing of a book after it’s been read, i.e. nothing more to do but move on to something else. It may also stem from the Catholic rite of excommunication. A bell is rung, a candle is extinguished and a book[the Bible, presumably] is closed, signifying it’s all over for you.
There’s this thing? Called Usenet?
Seems as though it’s got to do with booking a flight, ie: making use of the quickest available mode of exit.
I distinctly remember hearing this usage for the first time around 1974, as “let’s book.” It was new to me and I wrote it down as an example of teenage slang to use in a story.
I always thought it refered to setting a speed record, as in “Let’s make it one for the record books.”
Aren’t there (rather, “weren’t there”) workplaces where you have to record the time of your arrival and the moment you leave? Kinda like punching a card.
I take it to mean this, but I’ve been known an idiot in the past, so take it as that.
I always understood it to be a shortened form of boogie.
First we have boogie-woogie music. It was shortened to boogie. Boogie was then made a verb meaning dance. A new related meaning arose as move along/leave (analogous to “waltz right out of here”). Then boogie meaning leave (not boogie meaning music nor boogie meaning dance) was shortened to book.
This site seems to support that view. Scroll down to “Let’s boogie” and “Let’s book.”
Recent usage…
In The Incredibles during
the dining room scene when Helen tells Bob about Dash’s getting in trouble Bob is amazed and tells Dash something along the lines of 'Man, you must have been BOOKING"
FWIW, the “move quickly” conotation was also in use in the New Orleans area in the early to mid 1980s.
However, I have heard “book = leave” many times over the past decade or so.
I first heard in 1980 from my roommate. He was Jewish, so I had always just assumed it was a Yiddish word.
I’ve have always heard that it derived from “booking passage” on a plane or ship. So “Let’s book” meant “Let’s get away from here.”
And AFAIK “booking passage” is a rather old phrase. I’d consider this the best guess as the origin unless someone can show “boogie” was in common use before “booking passage”.
It was teenage slang in the Midwest in the mid-70s meaning “to go”.
Gotta split 
Even earlier, SoCal during high school, 1969-1972.
That doesn’t make sense to me. “Boogie” meaning to leave came into use in the 70’s. “Book” came into use after “boogie” did (which does make sense with its being a shortened form of “boogie”). How long “booking passage” was in use is irrelevant. I heard plenty of young folks in the era talk about boogieing, then somewhat later about booking. I never heard anyone talk about booking passage.
The Andrews Sisters had a hit with “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” in 1941. According to wikipedia, boogie-woogie was a popular type of piano music in the 40’s, and the word boogie was found in use as early as 1913.
Certainly boogie was around long enough to be the origin of book.
“Booking passage” is an old phrase. It clearly predates “boogie”. Why “book” instead of “boog”?
Some more on boogie.