fugitive

From Middle English futityve, fugitife, fugitif, from Old French fugitif, from Latin fugitīvus.

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, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, 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—!”

• abscotchalater (archaic)
• nomad
• wanderer
• runaway

From Middle English fugitive, fugityve, fugityf, fugitife, fugytif, fugitif, from Old French fugitif, from Latin fugitīvus.

fugitive (comparative more fugitive, superlative most fugitive)

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

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

fugitive f (plural fugitives, masculine fugitif)

1. female equivalent of fugitif; a female fugitive

• “fugitive” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

fugitīve

1. vocative masculine singular of fugitīvus