# refugee

Pronunciation: US say "REF-yuu-jee" /ˈɹɛfjʊd͡ʒiː/; UK say "ref-yuu-JEE" /ɹɛfjʊˈd͡ʒiː/

## Noun

1. A person seeking shelter or protection, especially in a foreign country, because of war, persecution, or natural disaster.
   - Simple: A person who leaves their home country to escape danger such as war, persecution, or disaster.
   - _The refugee applied for asylum after escaping political persecution in her homeland._
   - _Aid groups built camps to shelter refugees displaced by the earthquake._
2. A person fleeing from justice or a deserved punishment; a runaway or fugitive.
   - Simple: Someone who runs away to escape justice or punishment they deserve.
   - _Hunted by the authorities, the embezzler became a refugee from justice._
   - _The crowd jeered at the captured robbers as cowardly refugees from the gallows._

## Verb

3. To convey enslaved people away from the advance of federal forces. *(US)*
   - Simple: To move enslaved people away so the advancing federal army could not reach them.
   - _As Union troops neared, the owners refugeed their slaves further south._
   - _Some planters chose to refugee their enslaved people rather than risk losing them._

## Origin

From French réfugié, the past participle of réfugier ("to take refuge"), from Old French refuge ("hiding place") and Latin refugium ("a place of refuge"). It originally described French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685; the sense "one seeking asylum" broadened around 1914 to mean more generally "one fleeing home," first applied to civilians fleeing the fighting in Flanders during World War I.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/refugee (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).