FUGITIVE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fugitive mean? 

• FUGITIVE (noun)
  The noun FUGITIVE has 2 senses:

1. someone who flees from an uncongenial situation

2. someone who is sought by law officers; someone trying to elude justice

  Familiarity information: FUGITIVE used as a noun is rare.

• FUGITIVE (adjective)
  The adjective FUGITIVE has 1 sense:

1. lasting for a markedly brief time

  Familiarity information: FUGITIVE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FUGITIVE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who flees from an uncongenial situation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

fleer; fugitive; runaway

Context example:

fugitives from the sweatshops

Hypernyms ("fugitive" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who is sought by law officers; someone trying to elude justice

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

fugitive; fugitive from justice

Hypernyms ("fugitive" is a kind of...):

criminal; crook; felon; malefactor; outlaw (someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fugitive"):

absconder (a fugitive who runs away and hides to avoid arrest or prosecution)

escapee (someone who escapes)

• FUGITIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lasting for a markedly brief time

Synonyms:

fleeting; fugitive; momentaneous; momentary

Context example:

a momentary glimpse

Similar:

short (primarily temporal sense; indicating or being or seeming to be limited in duration)

 Context examples 

Batygin says he spends little time ruminating on its origin — whether it is a fugitive from our own solar system or, just maybe, a wandering rogue planet captured by the sun's gravity.

(The Super-Earth that Came Home for Dinner, NASA)

Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether anything had been heard of the fugitives.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

No trace could be found of the fugitives, and now, on Thursday morning, we are as ignorant as we were on Tuesday.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Even as we looked, he sprang upon the back of the fugitive and flung his arms round his neck.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont Cenis to Leghorn, where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable opportunity of passing into some part of the Turkish dominions.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Only on one point were they agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Every effort was made by Inspector Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding place of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been already prepared.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Their case was a hard one, for the folk in front refused to yield an inch of their places—but the arguments from the rear prevailed over everything else, and presently every frantic fugitive had been absorbed, whilst the beaters-out took their stands along the edge at regular intervals, with their whips held down by their thighs.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Early that morning a peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes’ ingenuity failed ever to discover the least clue as to their whereabouts.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Just at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut, which would certainly have split him to the chine had it not been intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral Benbow.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)