[Of obscure formation; perh. merely a concrete use of EXILE sb.1 1 (cf. OF. and ME. prison = prisoner); the development of sense may have been produced by direct association with L. exsul. It may however be f. EXILE v.]
1. A banished person; one compelled to reside away from his native land.
c. 1330. Arth. & Merl. (Kölbing), 8922. To lese his londes & ben exil.
c. 1450. Castle Hd. Life St. Cuthb. (Surtees), 5308. Of þair bischop, þat longe whyle had bene fra his kirk exile.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., III. i. 285. Get thee from my sight, Thou art an Exile, and thou must not stay.
1611. Bible, Isa. li. 14. The captiue exile hasteneth that he may be loosed.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Past., I. 91/4.
| O must the wretched Exiles ever mourn, | |
| Nor after length of rowl’ing Years return? |
1759. Robertson, Hist. Scot., I. II. 85. This unhappy exile … was destined to be the father of a race of kings.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., II. 105. Had been found guilty of the crime of patriotism, and was … an exile from his country.
1874. Green, Short Hist., vii. 399. Thousands of Flemish exiles found a refuge in the Cinque Ports.
attrib. and Comb. 1790. Norman & Bertha, I. 2. Thither froward fate pursued this amiable exile pair.
1856. Grote, Greece, II. xcv. XII. 439. The officers of Antipater, called in the language of the time exile-hunters, were … on the look-out to seize these proscribed men.
1888. George Kennan, in Century Mag., May, 3. A careful study of the exile system [of Russia.] Ibid., 4. Officers of the Exile Administration.
b. transf. and fig.
1770. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 365. The poor exiles … Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., I. 144. An exile from the paternal roof.
1843. Neale, Hymns for Sick, 58. Thy grace in us, poor exiles yet, implant.
1852. Earp, Gold Col. Australia, 100. The convict system ceased in New South Wales in 1839; but ‘exiles’ as they were termed, i. e. men who had passed their probation at home, were forwarded till 1843.
2. attrib. in Exile-tree, Exile-oil-plant, a name applied in India to the Thevetia neriifolia (N.O. Apocynaceæ), a plant introduced into that country from the West-Indies or tropical America.
It has large saffron-colored flowers, and the bark is used in medicine as an antiperiodic.
1865. J. Shortt, in Madras Quart. Jrnl. Med. Science, VIII. 195. I met with a large solitary tree…, and from its situation, it occurred to me at the time that the popular English name of ‘Exile’ seemed very appropriate.
1868. Waring, Pharmacopœia of India, 138. A West Indian shrub, domesticated in India, and cultivated under the name of The Exile or Yellow Oleander.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Exile-tree.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., s.v. Oil-plant, Exile. Ibid., s.v. Thevetia, Exile-oil-plant.
