refugee
n. countablen. someone who has been forced to leave their country to escape war, danger, or unfair treatment. They often travel to another country to find safety.
n. a person who has been forced to flee their home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution, conflict, or violence. Often used in legal contexts to describe individuals seeking international protection.
The family arrived as refugees after the war started.
International organizations are working to provide food and shelter for every refugee crossing the border this month.
The treaty establishes the legal rights of any refugee seeking asylum, ensuring they are not returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened.
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.
Commonly used with the verbs 'flee', 'settle', or 'displace'.