refuge - Wiktionary, the free dictionary


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From Middle English refuge, from Old French refuge, from Latin refugium, from re- + fugiō (“flee”). Doublet of refugium.

refuge (countable and uncountable, plural refuges)

  1. A state of safety, protection or shelter.

    • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

      Rocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these / Find place or refuge.

  2. A place providing safety, protection or shelter.

    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

      One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.

  3. Something or someone turned to for safety or assistance; a recourse or resort.
  4. An expedient to secure protection or defence.

    • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

      Their latest refuge / Was to send him.

    • a. 1639, Henry Wotton, An Essay on the Education of Children, in the First Rudiments of Learning, London: T. Waller, published 1753, page 17:

      This is occaſioned by this, that too too often the Teaching of a Grammar School is the ordinary Refuge that deſperate Perſons as to any other Employment in good Learning betake themſelves to; whilſt but a few know themſelves ſuited with intellectual and moral Abilities, and fewer have that Encouragement, when they undertake it, their Pains deſerve.

  5. A refuge island.

state of safety, protection or shelter

place providing safety, protection or shelter

refuge (third-person singular simple present refuges, present participle refuging, simple past and past participle refuged)

  1. (intransitive) To return to a place of shelter.

    • 2011, Michael D. Gumert, Agustín Fuentes, Lisa Jones-Engel, Monkeys on the Edge:

      Among these macaques, although activity cycles are quite variable from location to location, refuging is a common characteristic.

  2. (transitive, obsolete) To shelter; to protect.

to return to a place of shelter

Learned borrowing from Latin refugium.

refuge m (plural refuges)

  1. refuge

refuge

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of refugiō

From Old French refuge, from Latin refūgium. Compare refute.

  • IPA(key): /rɛˈfiu̯d͡ʒ(ə)/

refuge (plural refuges)

  1. refuge (state or means of protection)
  2. refuge (place of protection)
  3. A protector; one who protects or safeguards.

From Latin refugium. Doublet of refui.

refuge oblique singular, m (oblique plural refuges, nominative singular refuges, nominative plural refuge)

  1. a refuge
  2. (figuratively) a protector or savior