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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

refusenik.

One of the citizens of the former Soviet Union who was refused permission to emigrate (typically but not exclusively a Jewish citizen denied permission to immigrate to Israel).

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɹɪˈfjuːznɪk/Received-Pronunciation/ɹəˈfjuznɪk/General-American/ɹi-/General-American
  1. One of the citizens of the former Soviet Union who was refused permission to emigrate (typically but not exclusively a Jewish citizen denied permission to immigrate to Israel).

    historical · slang
  2. A person who refuses to do something, usually as a protest; for example, one who refuses conscription or vaccination.

    broadly · informal
Where this word comes from

From refuse + -nik (suffix denoting a nickname for a person who endorses, exemplifies, or is associated with something, often a particular ideology or preference), a calque of Russian отка́зник (otkáznik), from отка́з (otkáz, “denial, refusal, rejection, repudiation”) + -ник (-nik, suffix forming masculine nouns, usually denoting adherents, etc.).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.