internal exile

English

Noun

internal exile (countable and uncountable, plural internal exiles)

  1. (uncountable) Banishment to a remote part of one's own country as a punishment or sanction.
    • 1984 November 4, “Chile Sends 115 More Into Internal Exile”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
      The Government has said that all those sentenced to three months of internal exile and rehabilitation are ordinary criminals and that there is no political motive for the decision.
  2. (countable) A person thus banished.
  3. (figurative, uncountable) A sense of alienation and uprootedness.
    • 1995, David Patterson, Exile: The Sense of Alienation in Modern Russian Letters, University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 117:
      Unless this internal shift can be made, then not only the Russians but all of humanity will continue to languish in an internal exile.

References

  • OED 2006
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