Other forms: refugees
A refugee is a person forced to flee their country to stay safe. A refugee camp, refugees crossing, take in refugees.
The legal definition is exact: somebody outside their country with a well-founded fear of persecution, under the 1951 Convention. That is why the distinction from a migrant matters in law — a refugee has a right not to be sent back. Most are hosted by countries next door.
1nounrefugeeA person forced to flee their country to stay safe.
“The refugees lived in tents at a camp near the border.”
refugee is a person.
French refugie comes from refuge, from Latin refugium, a place of retreat. It was first used of Huguenots fleeing France.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰewg-
Latin
refugium — a place of refuge, place to flee back to
Old French
refuge — hiding place
French
réfugié
English, today
refugee
Built from
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. person seeking refuge 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 flīema.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA