refugee

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˌref.jʊˈdʒiː/, US /ˈref.jʊ.dʒi/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French réfugié (“gone in search of refuge”), the past participle of (se) réfugier, to take refuge,^[2][3][4] from refuge, Latin refugium, a place to flee back to (see refuge),^[2][3] from re-, back, and fugere, to flee (see fugitive).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

One who flees to a foreign country to escape religious persecution or political trouble: 1685 in the OED, the 1680s in Etymonline;^[5][2] Merriam-Webster gives 1671.^[3] It was first applied to the French Huguenots who fled after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word meant one seeking asylum until 1914, when it came to mean one fleeing home, first of civilians in Flanders escaping the fighting of World War I.^[2][5] A runaway or fugitive from justice is a rare sense of 1760–72.^[5] Australian slang of World War II shortened it to reffo.^[2]

Timeline

• 1671 – refugee.^[3]
• 1685 – a Huguenot refugee.^[5][2]
• 1914 – one driven from home by war.^[2][5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who has fled from war, persecution or disaster, especially to another country.

Word family

• refugeeism
• reffo

Related words

• refuge
• fugitive
• centrifugal
• subterfuge

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press