boat people

plural noun

refugees who have fled a country by boat, usually without sufficient provisions, navigational aids, or a set destination, especially those who left Indochina by sea as a result of the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.

boat people

refugees, esp from Vietnam in the late 1970s, who leave by boat hoping to be picked up by ships of another country

First recorded in 1975–80

The communist reeducation camps, the flight of the boat people, and the Cambodian killing fields followed.

I wanted air and quiet, but the desire of my boat people was set on a chance to go a-marketing or to do a little visiting.

These Chinese boat people are perhaps unequalled by any others in the world.

The party were in a frolicsome mood; and they went off singing a song, to the great astonishment of the native boat-people.

At sundown the boat-people anchor their craft in rows to stakes, thus forming boat-terraces as it were.

He checked the evidence of the boat people as it had appeared in the papers by what they said now.

April 23, 2024inveterate

[in-vet-er-it ]

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