euphemistic term for a convict.The word has disappeared with the need for it.
1837. Jas. Mudie, `Felonry of New South Wales,' p. vii.:
«The ludicrous and affected philanthropy of the presentGovernor of the Colony, in advertising runaway convicts underthe soft and gentle name of absentees, is reallyunaccountable, unless we suppose it possible that hisExcellency as a native of Ireland, and as having awell-grounded Hibernian antipathy to his absentee countrymen,uses the term as one expressive both of the criminality of theabsentee and of his own abhorrence of the crime.»