fugitive

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French fugitif, from Latin fugitivus.

Noun

fugitive (plural fugitives)

  1. A person who flees or escapes and travels secretly from place to place, and sometimes using disguises and aliases to conceal his/her identity, as to avoid law authorities in order to avoid an arrest or prosecution; or to avoid some other unwanted situation.
    • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter VI, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 24962326:
      “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, […] the speed-mad fugitives from the furies of ennui, the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!”

Synonyms

Translations

Adjective

fugitive (comparative more fugitive, superlative most fugitive)

  1. fleeing or running away
  2. transient, fleeting or ephemeral
  3. elusive or difficult to retain

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

French

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /fy.ʒi.tiv/
  • Rhymes: -iv
  • Homophone: fugitives

Noun

fugitive f (plural fugitives, masculine fugitif)

  1. feminine equivalent of fugitif; a female fugitive

Further reading

Latin

Adjective

fugitīve

  1. vocative masculine singular of fugitīvus
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