“Refugee” overlaps with the French words “refuge” and “refugier”, but the route into English starts out with some Latin forms of the word, like “refugium”, a place of shelter. Both in Latin and French, God was talked of as a “refuge”, a protector. Geoffrey Chaucer often marks an arrival of a French word into common English usage. In his Knight’s Tale (c.1405), we find the phrase, “Give us neither mercy nor refuge, but slay me” (modernised spelling).
The Oxford Dictionary lists the first example of “refugee” in the modern sense, attached to Protestants who fled religious persecution in France, especially after 1685 and the Edict of Nantes. In 1687, John Evelyn, in his famous Diary, wrote of “the poor and religious Refugieès [sic] who escaped out of France in the cruel persecution”. Even so, a little earlier there are references to “poor refugees in Norwich, Colchester, Sandwich, Maidstone and Southampton”, a reminder that places some think of as “pure English” (whatever that means) have had their share of migrants from as far back as the 17th century. Daniel Defoe used the word in 1724, presumably in the knowledge that his readers were familiar with it, talking of “the people call’d refugees”.
In the slippery way that we all enjoy, we find writers using the word metaphorically or hyperbolically. A migratory bird could be described as a “refugee” (1764); Lawrence Durrell, in Justine (1957), wrote: “You are a mental refugee of course, being Irish.”
As we know only too well, the word can also be used in an inversion of its customary sense when the person is deemed unworthy: a refugee from the law and due punishment. This idea has been around since at least the 18th century. One Lady Miller, writing in 1777, first described refugees as “robbers and murderers”, before adding: “The soldiers seize the refugees and bring them to justice.”
What’s not clear from Lady Miller’s writing is whether this outcome was better or worse than having your dinghy turned round in the English Channel in 2021 and sent back to France.
This piece is from the New Humanist winter 2021 edition. Subscribe today.
