remittance man

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remittance man

a man living abroad on money sent from home, esp in the days of the British Empire

remit′tance man`

a person living abroad chiefly supported by remittances from home.

[1885–90]

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Noun

remittance man - an exile living on money sent from home

exile, expat, expatriate - a person who is voluntarily absent from home or country; "American expatriates"

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References in periodicals archive ?

The fact remains, however, when one has heard all these yarns--all the stories of the young Englishman who spent two or three months of summer on the homestead and put in the rest in towns, living well, and talking, as it was described to me, the "large language of the earlier gods"--all the discouraging history of the remittance men who were transplanted from the home estate to the Western prairie in the hope that they who failed at home could succeed abroad--when one has heard all this, the fact stands that the Englishman has a wide influence in the Territories and British Columbia, that we owe much to his capital and much to his pluck that he gives character to the social life of many of the Western communities.

Englishmen in the West

And they had no time for "remittance men," British patricians sent to the colonies to carve out lives aided by parental remittances, and scorned by Canadians as lazy, arrogant, snobbish ignoramuses.

Canadian romance: a trove of letters provides a glimpse into early 20th-century love and courtship

Socially, the mix included everything from English remittance men to participants in Chinese Tong Wars, What is striking is how consistently this west coast community-in-the-making eschewed indigenous values.