fugitive from justice
5
7.9
- noun
- /ˈfjuːdʒɪtɪv frʌm ˈdʒʌstɪs/
- Formal
:
fugitivo de la justicia
- After escaping from prison, she became a fugitive from justice.
- charged as a fugitive from justice
- a career fugitive from justice
Examples
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According to the Sheriff's Office Corrections Division, 38-year-old Louis Acevedo, who had been arrested as a fugitive from justice from Florida, is accused of repeatedly stabbing the other man in the face overnight on October 9th.
Blog text (33) -
You're a fugitive from justice.
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Only a few days ago he was a fugitive from justice.
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You are a fugitive from justice!
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So now I'm a fugitive from justice.
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The fact is that he's a fugitive from justice.
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He is a fugitive from justice.
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"He's a fugitive from justice now."
Fiction book (1997) -
They think you're a fugitive from justice.
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One of the terrorists has been identified as Veronica Roberts, a former employee of CNA News and apparently a fugitive from justice in the United States.
Synonyms
213
6.6
A person who runs away and hides from the police or danger
1
8.7
A person who runs away to avoid arrest or punishment
A foreign person who stays in the United States after a court orders them to leave
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally transparent: 'fugitive' denotes a person running away and 'from justice' indicates fleeing the legal system or authorities, so the overall meaning (someone avoiding arrest or prosecution) follows directly. This construction is common cross-linguistically (e.g., Spanish 'fugitivo de la justicia'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will likely understand it.
Etymology
Fugitive from justice gives the image of a person who has run away from the law: a fugitive is someone 'running away' and justice here means the police or the courts. That's why it means 'a person the authorities are looking for to arrest'.