exodus

Etymology

From Latin exodus, from Ancient Greek ἔξοδος (éxodos, “expedition, procession, departure”). Doublet of exodos. From late Old English only as a proper noun, Exodus, the biblical book; use as a common noun is from the early 17th century.

noun

1. A sudden departure of a large number of people.
   There was an exodus when the show ended.
   In the movie Submersion of Japan, virtually all Japanese desperately try to find any form of transportation out of Japan in a massive exodus to flee the sinking country.
   a mass exodus
   There were no less than three exodi from Egypt. The first was the one just named, viz: the expulsion of two hundred and forty thousand Cuthites by Halisphragmuthosis; this occurred about two hundred years before the entrance of the Israelitish shepherds into Egypt. The second exodus was that of this once holy people, under the guidance of the Almighty, through his servant Moses, the account of which we have in profane history, substantiated in the minutest particulars by the sacred writings given us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which protected and preserved the race. But the third is not so generally known. 1839, John Delafield Jr., An Inquiry into the Origin of the Antiquities of America, Cincinnati, Oh.: N. G. Burgess & Co., page 75
   Now if, as we have seen good reason for believing, the documents were composed within forty or fifty years after the leaving of Egypt, it is hard to believe that their authors should have been so confused and so forgetful that they confounded two city-lands so distinct and separate as Goshen and Raamses, and were ignorant as to which was really the Israelite habitat when in Egypt. There suggests itself at once the hypothetical question, Were there two exodi, one from Raamses and the other from Goshen? […] Only on the hypothesis of two exodi, one to the south, the other to the north, do the two accounts of the route out of Egypt become explainable. 1909, Olaf A[lfred] Toffteen, The Historic Exodus (Researches in Biblical Archaeology), Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, pages 147 (Differences Between P and JED.—The Settlements in Egypt) and 164 (Differences Between P and JED.—The Going-out from Egypt)
   At 18ʰ00′, 21 minutes before sunset, the migrants started to depart in waves as already described for other exodi; […] 1960, Mosquito News, volume 20, American Mosquito Control Association, page 145
   Further, rural exodus, especially among young generations who refuse to engage themselves in hard, misremunerated agricultural work, is also a cause of the current crisis. 1989, African Study Monographs - Volume 10, page 6
   While this report acknowledged that resentment of military conscription without the provision of political rights was one reason for the exodus, it went on to recommend that the entire colonial system in Algeria needed reform to prevent future exodi. 2000, Ricardo René Larémont, Islam and the Politics of Resistance in Algeria, 1783-1992, Africa World Press, Inc., page 54
   That Artapanus was able to give the name of the pharaoh involved in his version of the story shows that this was known in his time (ca 250 BCE) and that the amalgamation of the different exodi into one epic must have taken place around that time or later. 2016, Gijsbert J.B. Sulman, Facts, Fiction, and the Bible: The Truth Behind the Stories in the Old Testament, Balboa Press

verb

1. To depart from a place in a large group.