Refugitive

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fugitive who seeks refuge in another state or country.

    "Defeated in 1836, a rebel and a refugitive in 1837, an exile struggling with misfortune and, at the best, uncongenial conditions for a long term of years, Mackenzie was not only restored to Canada, but again had a constituency at his back and ..."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to refuge.

    "The settlements of a refugitive nature (2a) are hard to be determined. First of all they were conditioned by the occasional refugitive needs of the people and their property."

Example

More examples

"Defeated in 1836, a rebel and a refugitive in 1837, an exile struggling with misfortune and, at the best, uncongenial conditions for a long term of years, Mackenzie was not only restored to Canada, but again had a constituency at his back and ..."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Blend of refugee + fugitive.

Etymology 2

From refuge + -ive.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.