Peter

[This word often, but not necessarily, refers to a journey to escape an undesirable situation, and can refer both to a physical journey or to a figurative journey, such as a change of position. Examples of both kinds of journeys are given here.]

[Fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, journalist Hassan Fazili and his family] packed up everything they could carry and fled … what turned out to be a 3,500 mile hegira across some of the most perilous borders in the world. (Peter Keough, “Fleeing the Taliban,” The Boston Globe, 10/13/2019.)

In Blinded by the Right, his account of his ideological hegira from conservative button man to liberal media critic, David Brock describes a hilarious scene at an Arkansas bait shop. (Charles  Pierce, “Sure, They Love Her Now….” Esquire, June, 2013.)

This word can also, in the proper context, be synonymous with trip, voyage, trek, expedition, trip and migration.…

There was enough interest, though, for Sky Germany’s coverage of the first round of [soccer] games in this bleak new [Coronavirus] world to draw in six million viewers, a record, each of them watching from home, atomized and all but alone, a tribe still bound by its colors but unable to gather under its standard. (Rory Smith, “This is What Watching Soccer Looks Like Now,” The New York Times 05/18/2020.)

When used in the sense above, this word can also be synonymous with fragment, divide, segregate, split (apart) and alone.…

As the arguments unfurled in Tuesday’s case on same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court justices sounded more and more cranky. …  “Same-sex marriage is very new,” Justice Samuel Alito whinged, noting that “it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing.” If the standard is that marriage always has to be “a good thing,” would heterosexuals pass? (Maureen Dowd, “Courting Cowardice,” The New York Times, 03/26/2013.)

This word can also be synonymous with moan, complain, gripe, protest, and object, when used in the sense of “whine.”…

She would pay the monthly mortgage and cover the cost of bringing electricity and water to the land. In return, he would build her a house and be a general dogsbody for anything that she needed doing. (Craig Smith, “Between the Lines,” The Sante Fe New Mexican, 08/05/2016.)

This word can also be a synonym for aide or helper.…

Tanya is a 27-year-old working-class single mother.  … Unlike Tanya, Miranda long ago flew up from prole purgatory into elite heaven, complete with “ritzy” private schools, a Newport address and limitless credit cards. (Jesse Green, “Review,” The New York Times, 05/23/2017).…