refugee

plural refugees

1. alsoattributivefigurativelyA person seeking refuge (as for shelter or protection), especially in a foreign country, out of fear or prospect of political, religious persecution, war, natural disaster, etc.First known use 1680s

   In 1962 a special law had to be passed to permit the immigration of several thousand Chinese refugees who had escaped from Communist China to Hong Kong.

   1964, John F. Kennedy, A Nation of Immigrants, Revised and Enlarged edition, Harper & Row, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 78–79

   5 more examples

   The eight military bases being used to house Afghan refugees have a total capacity of 50,000 to house evacuees. […] The nine refugee resettlement agencies who work in coordination with the federal government will ultimately determine where Afghans are relocated, based on whether they have US ties or where their local affiliates have capacity to take them in.

   2021 September 13, Priscilla Alvarez and Oren Liebermann, “Inside the effort to resettle thousands of Afghans in the United States”, in CNN

   While thousands of refugees were evacuated from the New Orleans convention center, chaos continued at the airport, thousands were still trapped in homes and hotels, fires raged virtually unchecked in parts of the city, the power was out, and vast sections were still under water.

   2005 September 4, Robert D. McFadden, “Bush Pledges More Troops as Evacuation Grows”, in The New York Times

   Why did the SDP dream eventually fade? Partly because it succeeded far better inside parliament than out. It might attract some inner-city Catholic traditionalist Labour refugees from Labour's left, but many of those were already gentrifying.

   2010, Brian Harrison, Finding a Role?: The United Kingdom 1970-1990, page 2181

   Alluding to the regional consequences of a war in the Taiwan Strait, Zelensky pointed out that there could be millions of refugees, similar to the result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

   2022 June 13, “Video shows Zelensky call on world to help Taiwan before China invades”, in Taiwan News, archived from the original on 13 Jun 2022

   My son, a Canada-based IT professional who often travels to Ukraine, told me about the exhilarating atmosphere on those Ukraine-bound trains, bringing home hundreds of the unwilling refugees, mostly women and children (including the babies, born in exile on the way to meet their Ukrainian fighter fathers for the first time). The difference between Ukrainian refugees and other reluctant exiles is that Ukrainians are desperate to return.

   2024 September 4, Vitali Vitaliev, “A salute to Ukraine's 'Second Army'”, in RAIL, number 1017, page 49

2. broadlyderogatoryA person who is fleeing from justice, punishment deemed righteous, etc.; a runaway, a fugitive.First known use 1750s

present singular third person refugees · participle present refugeeing · participle past refugeed · past refugeed

1. UShistoricaltransitiveTo convey (slaves) away from the advance of the federal forces.