Refugees / 难民 和 migrants / 流动工人；移居者
由于叙利亚难民危机在2015年底占据新闻头条，英语世界的媒体也开始了一场有关 refugee 和 migrant 两个词汇意义的辩论。OxfordDictionaries.com 平台给出的定义分别为 refugee：a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster，而 migrant：a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions。
“The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.”
围绕语义差异的辩论说明，在报道复杂话题时，有时记者很难找到一个正确的词汇，而使用错误的术语就有可能产生负面影响。在联合国难民署（UNHCR）的网站上，有这样的警示语：Confusing [the terms refugee and migrant] can lead to problems for refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as misunderstandings in discussions of asylum and migration.
Immigrants 和 emigrants （移民）
Migrant （移居者；流动工人）一词与 refugee 一样，其使用量都在2015年9月攀升，这实际上超过了语义上相关的词汇 immigrant。OxfordDictionaries.com 将 immigrant 定义为 a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country。
Asylum seekers（寻求庇护者）和 displaced people（流离失所者）
虽然 asylum seeker 在语义上与 refugee 很接近，表示“a person who has left their home country as a political refugee and is seeking asylum in another”，达到每百万字0.7的出现频率。但在媒体上从未像 refugee 一样受到关注，达到每百万字 32.12 的出现频率（正如上面使用频率线图所示）。OED 认为 asylum seeker 一词出现在1950年左右，这应该是在1951年签署的日内瓦公约出现的背景下应运而生。
Refugee 一词的出现就要更向前推进200年，如 OED 的词条所示，它在17世纪下半叶就开始在英语中使用，但最初的历史含义为“Protestant who fled France to seek refuge elsewhere from religious persecution”，指逃避**，尤指1685年颁布南特赦令（the Edict of Nantes）后逃离法国的胡格诺派（Huguenots）教徒。
另一个术语——displaced person（常常简写为D.P.）特指第二次世界大战期间“non-German compelled to work in Germany”，即被迫在德国工作的非德人员。根据 OED，1944年美国报纸文章上第一次出现该词：“The Refugees..or, as they term these people here..the Displaced Persons.” 现在，D.P.还可以更广泛用于一位“因为军事或政治压力而从本国搬出”的人。在牛津语料库中检索 displaced people 一词，只产生6649个结果，达到每百万字中0.83的出现次数，比 asylum seeker 的出现率还要低。
Expats 侨民
单词expat 也是此次谈及的一个有趣的词汇，是 expatriate 一词的简写，指“a person who lives outside their native country”。