Word.ws English Dictionary

refusnik

refusnik is the alternative spelling 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 refusnik

pluralrefusniks
pluralrefusniki

Questions about refusnik

What is refusnik the alternative spelling of?
Refusnik is the alternative spelling of refusenik.

Words near refusnik in the dictionary

  1. refusing
  2. refusingly
  3. refusion
  4. refusions
  5. refusive
  6. refusnik
  7. refusniki
  8. refusniks
  9. refutabilities
  10. refutability
  11. refutable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: refusnik (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: “refusnik.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/refusnik. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.