expiree

See also: expirée

English

Etymology

From expire +‎ -ee.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Noun

expiree (plural expirees)

1. (Australia, historical) In penal colonies of early Australia, a convict whose sentence had been served.
   • 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, IV.2:

     [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.

   • 1984, Lloyd Evans, Paul Llewellyn Nicholls, Convicts and Colonial Society, 1788-1868, page 276:

     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.

   • 1985, University of Western Australia, Westerly‎^[2], volume 30, page 248:

     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.

   • 1995, Royal Australian Historical Society, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society‎^[3], volume 81, page 37:

     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.

See also

• emancipist