refugee
Americannoun
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refugees
plural
-
a person who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of refugee
First recorded in 1675–85; from French réfugié “taken refuge,” past participle of réfugier “to take refuge”; equivalent to refuge + -ee
Explanation
A refugee is someone who has left a dangerous place for a less dangerous place. You could help refugees from a hurricane by bringing them food and blankets. Refuge means shelter. So a refugee is a person that seeks shelter, usually from war, natural disaster, or some other harmful situation. If you see the conditions inside a refugee camp, you will realize how hard the lives of the refugees must have been before leaving home.
Vocabulary lists containing refugee
President Obama's Farewell Address
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A Long Way Gone
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Albert Einstein
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
At only eight, she fled war-torn Somalia with her family after gunmen attacked their home and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for four years.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
In his poem “Sanctions,” he describes how his father, a surly Cuban refugee who worked as a DJ, laid out the terms of acceptable masculinity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
She also covered Texas veterans and the military, traveling to Iraq for the Chronicle, and documenting the stories of Houston’s Arab and Muslim refugee communities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
Omar’s family was granted asylum in the United States in 1995, having spent years in Kenyan refugee camps after emigrating from Somalia due to the country’s civil war.
From Slate ● Oct. 13, 2026
Yet as I looked at the photos of Mo helping out at the refugee camps, rebuilding bombed-out villages, and replanting farms, I couldn't help but think of how that birthplace had suffered over the centuries.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
Like so many waves of refugees before and after, these are people who took huge risks to survive, and many of them, like Omar, are thriving.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
Even though the community suffers from extensive poverty due in part to discrimination and the few resources refugees from a war-torn country are able to marshal, it has also produced a large number of entrepreneurs.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
The family later fled to the US as refugees through the UN, but the trauma of those lost years still weighs heavily on them.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
“Unlike Xavier Becerra, I am an immigrant,” the British-born son of Hungarian refugees harrumphed on social media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
“I heard word that there are thousands of refugees from the North who are heading south. The trains are packed full and the roads are clogged with refugees.”
From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
