refugee

B2 Topic:Social Issues & Human Rights

US /ˈɹɛfjʊd͡ʒiː/ See IPA manual

Freq #10694

Meanings

1

noun
A person who has been forced to leave their country because of war, persecution, or disaster.

Thousands of refugees crossed the border to escape the fighting.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

flightling

Word family

Forms refugees

Derived forms antirefugeeleftugeemcrefugeenonrefugeerapefugeerefforefugeedomrefugeehoodrefugeeismrefugeeshiprefugitiverefujew

Appears in

Phrases (1)

See all

refugee camp
a place providing temporary shelter for people forced to leave their homes

Noun + noun

Simplified etymology

Refugee, recorded from the early 17th century, ultimately belongs to the word family of Latin fugere “to flee.” It is historically related to refuge and fugitive.

Etymology

From French réfugié, past participle of réfugier (“to take refuge, to seek refuge”), from Old French refuge (“hiding place”) from Latin refugium (“a place of refuge, place to flee back to”), originally describing French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Noun sense 1 was "one seeking asylum" until 1914, when it evolved to mean more generally "one fleeing home" (first applied in this sense to civilians in Flanders heading west to escape fighting in World War I). By surface analysis, refuge + -ee. Displaced native Old English flīema.

*bʰewg- Proto-Indo-European réfugié French refuge Middle English refugium Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Social Issues & Human Rights

External links

# refugee

**Type:** Word
**Level:** B2
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈɹɛfjʊd͡ʒiː/
**Frequency rank:** 10694

## Meanings
1. A person who has been forced to leave their country because of war, persecution, or disaster.

## Examples
- Thousands of refugees crossed the border to escape the fighting.

## Synonyms
- flightling

## Derived Forms
- antirefugee
- leftugee
- mcrefugee
- nonrefugee
- rapefugee
- reffo
- refugeedom
- refugeehood
- refugeeism
- refugeeship
- refugitive
- refujew

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: *bʰewg-
- Root: réfugié
- Root: refuge
- Root: refugium

## Etymology
From French réfugié, past participle of réfugier (“to take refuge, to seek refuge”), from Old French refuge (“hiding place”) from Latin refugium (“a place of refuge, place to flee back to”), originally describing French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Noun sense 1 was "one seeking asylum" until 1914, when it evolved to mean more generally "one fleeing home" (first applied in this sense to civilians in Flanders heading west to escape fighting in World War I). By surface analysis, refuge + -ee. Displaced native Old English flīema.

## AI Etymology
Refugee comes from French réfugié, past participle of réfugier (“to take refuge, to seek refuge”), from Old French refuge (“hiding place”) from Latin refugium (“a place of refuge, place to flee back to”), originally describing French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Noun sense 1 was "one seeking asylum" until 1914, when it evolved to mean more generally "one fleeing home" (first applied in this sense to civilians in Flanders heading west to escape fighting in World War I). By surface analysis, refuge + -ee. Displaced native Old English flīema. Modern senses include a person who has been forced to leave their country because of war, persecution, or disaster.. The wider word family includes derivatives such as antirefugee, leftugee, mcrefugee, nonrefugee, rapefugee, and reffo.

## Topics
- Social Issues & Human Rights

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