Dictionary

expiree en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From expire + -ee.

Meanings

1. (Australia, historical) In penal colonies of early Australia, a convict whose sentence had been served.
   • Most of them secured a husband within a year or so, but more remarkable is the fact that expirees competed very successfully against the colonial boys for brides. This was despite the knowledge that a woman who married an expiree lost her claim to respectability. 1985, University of Western Australia, Westerly, volume 30, page 248:
   • Many old expirees received terminal or geriatric care in the Society′s Asylum, but there was a gap between the expiration of their sentences and their requiring terminal care during which time they depended upon their own resources. 1995, Royal Australian Historical Society, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, volume 81, page 37:
   • According to the census of 1870 the number of men still under the charge of the authorities is about four thousand, including those still in confinement; expirees being classed as free men. 1984, Lloyd Evans, Paul Llewellyn Nicholls, Convicts and Colonial Society, 1788-1868, page 276:
   • [W]hen the year after, John Carr blossomed into an "expiree", master of a fine wife and a fine fortune, there were many about him who would have made his existence in Australia pleasant enough. 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, IV.2:

Forms

Relateds

emancipist