Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “fugitive” come from?

Fugitive comes from Middle English fugitive, from Latin fugitivus, combining the root of Latin fugio meaning "to flee" with the suffix -ivus.

fugitive (English): A person who flees or escapes and travels...

Definitions

  1. A person who flees or escapes and travels...

Ancestry of “fugitive”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishfugitive—
2Latinfugitivusfugitive, deserter, runaway slave; fugitive
3LatinfugitoI flee; I eschew, shun; second-person singular...
4Latin-tō—
5Latin-tusForms the past participle of verbs; Forms...
6Proto-Italic-tus—
7Proto-Indo-European-tusDerives action nouns from verb roots

Words derived from “fugitive”

  • fugitively
  • fugitiveness
  • fugitivity
  • nonfugitive
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -tus →