13

So as far as I understand 'to flee' is the verb, derivative noun from it is 'a flight' (as the process of running away), but what are the people who flee called? (And I don't mean cowards and other words of this kind.)

Improve this question
9
  • 5
    They’re flighty flying fleers.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Mar 26, 2014 at 18:11
  • 2
    It seems to me that fly can also mean flee, so it may make sense to call them flyers.
    – milestyle
    Mar 26, 2014 at 18:35
  • 2
    @milestyle, sure, but nobody would really understand that they're fleeing - it would be assumed they were flying, right?
    – Kristina Lopez
    Mar 26, 2014 at 18:36
  • 1
    As a curiosity: the German word is Flüchtling, which in English would be *flightling
    – Walter Tross
    Mar 27, 2014 at 11:11
  • 1
    @JanusBahsJacquet Surely that would be fleet ones, for those who are not do not escape. :) “The fleet have fled.”
    – tchrist ♦
    Mar 28, 2014 at 0:29

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
31

Despite how weird or unglamorous, the word you are looking for is actually fleer. My dead-tree (thus not easily linkable) American Heritage Dictionary specifically lists it as a noun form at the end of its entry for flee.

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    Plus a note: I believe you pronounce this as "flee-er", it does not rhyme with "rear".
    – Izkata
    Mar 27, 2014 at 19:34
  • My dead-tree Webster's New Collegiate agrees. Fleer also means "To laugh or grimace coarsely or scornfully; sneer; A word or look of derision or mockery." Fleers aren't in a position to fleer until they have safely fled.
    – ab2
    Aug 7, 2015 at 21:48
12

Often 'refugee' may be a good noun to use when describing people who are fleeing.

Improve this answer
12

How about fugitive? Here is how Encyclopédie Universelle defines that term:

a person who is fleeing, from prosecution, intolerable circumstances, etc.; a runaway: a fugitive from justice; a fugitive from a dictatorial regime.

Improve this answer
1
  • 3
    "Fugitive" carries strong connotations of criminality.
    – David Richerby
    Mar 26, 2014 at 20:41
3

Perhaps you could use escapee. Most nouns that mean to flee will carry strong connotations of something or another; it's just the nature of the game.

Improve this answer
2

What about runner? The term is frequently used in popular media to identify one that flees. The website subzin lists at least 30 instances of the phrase “We have a runner.”

Improve this answer
0

Flee is synonymous with hasten, also a verb. It is derived from the Old French word 'haste' a noun which means: "Energetic speed in motion or action, as from eagerness, fear, urgency of circumstances, etc." From that a person who hastens(flees) is a (hastener). Source: The New Century Dictionary of the English Language, D.Appleton-Century Co., New York-London, 1944, p.717

Improve this answer
1
  • Despite the fact that flee and fleet come form the same proto-Indo-European root, flee is from Old English, fleet is from Old Norse, and flee hasn't meant hasten in English for well over 1000 years, if it ever did.
    – Peter Shor
    Oct 2, 2019 at 12:58
0

It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

(A H Clough, 'Say not the struggle naught availeth')

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.