non-refoulement
/ˌnɑnɹəˌfulˈmɑn/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.62 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The principle that a person (particularly a refugee) should not be returned to an area (chiefly their country of origin) where they would face mistreatment.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "In international law, there is a principle that is of paramount importance—the principle of non-refoulement (prohibition to return). The principle is applicable to any refugee, asylum-seeker or an alien who needs some form of shelter from the state whose control he/she is under. The non-refoulement principle means that states cannot return aliens to territories where they might be subjected to torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, or where their lives and freedoms might be at risk."
Etymology
From non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + refoulement. Refoulement is borrowed from French refoulement (“act of pushing something back (as gunpowder into a gun barrel, or water by a dam); act of water overflowing; forced relocation of a group of people; forced repatriation of asylum-seekers or refugees”), from refouler (“to cause to flow or turn back; to repress, suppress; to repulse; to trample on again”) (from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + fouler (“to impress, stamp; to trample, walk on; to mistreat, oppress”) (ultimately from Medieval Latin fullare (“to make cloth denser and firmer by soaking, beating and pressing, to full”), from Latin fullō (“one who fulls cloth, fuller”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“to blow; to inflate, swell”)) + -ment (suffix forming nouns from verbs, usually denoting resulting actions or states).
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Prefix: non
- Root: *bʰleh₃-, refoulement, fullare, fullō
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌnɑnɹəˌfulˈmɑn/
- British English: /ˌnɒnɹəˈfuːlmɒ̃/