Word.ws English Dictionary

refusednik

refusednik is the alternative form of refusenik.

Meaning of refusenik

Noun

refusenik (plural refuseniks or refuseniki)

  1. (historical, slang, Soviet Union) 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).
    • The refuseniki say they don’t want to change anything in the U.S.S.R., only leave it.1985 June 2, Louis Moore, “‘Refuseniki’ look to the West with hope”, in Houston Chronicle, volume 84, number 232, Houston, Tex.: Houston Chronicle Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, section 1, page 3...
    Synonyms:
    otkaznik
  2. (broadly, informal) A person who refuses to do something, usually as a protest; for example, one who refuses conscription or vaccination.
    • Near-synonyms: recusant, decliner, dissenter, objector, protester, defier, maverick, nonconformist, rebel, renegade

Forms of refusednik

pluralrefusedniks

Origin of refusednik

From refused + -nik.

Questions about refusednik

What is refusednik the alternative form of?
Refusednik is the alternative form of refusenik.

Words near refusednik in the dictionary

  1. refuse collector
  2. refuse collectors
  3. refuse-collector
  4. refuse-collectors
  5. refused
  6. refusednik
  7. refusedniks
  8. refusedst
  9. refusenik
  10. refuseniki
  11. refuseniks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: refusednik (page history and authors); refusenik (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “refusednik.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/refusednik. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.