fugitive

plural fugitives

1. A person who flees or escapes and travels secretly from place to place, and sometimes using disguises and aliases to conceal their identity, as to avoid law authorities in order to avoid an arrest or prosecution, or to avoid some other unwanted situation.

   1 more example

   “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera,[…]the speed-mad fugitives from the furies of ennui, the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!”

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VI, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: abscotchalater, nomad, wanderer, runaway

comparative more fugitive · superlative most fugitive

1. Fleeing or running away; escaping.

   I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

2. Transient, fleeting or ephemeral.

   Turmeric can also dye a yellow, but it is very fugitive.

   1847, editorial staff, “To Dye Yellow Color”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 3, Issue 9, page 72

3. Elusive or difficult to retain.

present singular third person fugitives · participle present fugitiving · participle past fugitived · past fugitived

1. transitiveTo render someone a fugitive; to drive into escape or exile.

   Her son Thomas was fugitived in the persecution.

   1864, J. B. Greenshields, Annals of the Parish of Lesmahagow, page 116