Etymology From Middle English fugitive, fugityve, fugityf, fugitife, fugytif, fugitif, from Latin fugitīvus, from fugitō, from fugiō.
1
A person who flees or escapes and travels secretly from place to place, and sometimes using disguises and aliases to conceal their identity, as to avoid law authorities in order to avoid an arrest or prosecution, or to avoid some other unwanted situation.
“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—!”1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VI, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
Etymology From Middle English fugitive, fugityve, fugityf, fugitife, fugytif, fugitif, from Latin fugitīvus, from fugitō, from fugiō.
1
Fleeing or running away; escaping.
I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC: