hider; person in hiding
Refers to someone who is concealing themselves, often to avoid detection or capture. The word is relatively rare and formal; in everyday speech, phrases like 隠れている人 are more common.
The police are tracking the whereabouts of the person in hiding.
The hider had been lurking in the basement for years.
潜伏者 also means a person in hiding, but often implies a longer-term concealment or undercover activity, whereas 隠匿者 is more general.
Compound of 隠匿 (いんとく, 'concealment') + 者 (しゃ, 'person'). The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but the word follows a standard Sino-Japanese pattern for forming agent nouns.