refusenik

noun

re·​fuse·​nik ri-ˈfyüz-(ˌ)nik 

variants or less commonly refusnik

1

: a Soviet citizen and especially a Jew refused permission to emigrate

2

: a person who refuses or declines something

Examples of refusenik in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Instead, Elam became a refusenik, as conscientious objectors are called in Israel, over his disapproval of the Israel-Hamas war. —Jade Walker, CNN, 25 Mar. 2025

After getting a secret greenlight in March 1990, Mr. Reichmann was aboard his private plane to Lithuania to pick up refusenik Raiz and his son. —Brian Murphy, Washington Post, 10 Jan. 2023

When the Soviet Union lifted its ban on the Jewish refusenik emigration in 1971, my family saw their opportunity to start over in America. —Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2022

Vaccine mandates by large companies and government agencies, many of them imposed at President Biden’s behest, seem to be working—without vaccine-refusenik workers quitting en masse, as threatened. —Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 1 Oct. 2021

Can the host forbid entry or try to make a refusenik toe the line? —Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2021

If the refusal to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge was sure to earn the Republican refusenik a potent primary challenge from the right, a denying Trump’s election lies as a gospel truth will likely lead to the same punishment. —Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 7 July 2021

Natan Sharansky has been a computer scientist, a chess player, a refusenik, a dissident, a political prisoner, a party leader, a government minister, a nonprofit executive, and a bestselling author. —Matthew Continetti, National Review, 28 Nov. 2020

Nor does everyone feel oppressed by celebrity; all that star-maker machinery has to get stoked with something, and for every Dylanesque refusenik in the world there are ten thousand volunteers for fame. —Jonathan Dee, The New Yorker, 29 June 2020

Word History

Etymology

partial translation of Russian otkaznik, from otkaz refusal

First Known Use

1973, in the meaning defined at sense 1