emigrate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Usage
What does emigrate mean? Emigrate means to permanently leave home in one country or region to settle in another. The act or occurrence of emigrating is called emigration. A person who is emigrating or has emigrated can be called an emigrant. What’s the difference between emigrate, immigrate, and migrate?To migrate is to move from one place to another (and perhaps back and forth). To emigrate is to move out, and to immigrate is to move in. For this reason, the word emigrate is commonly followed by from and the home country, whereas immigrate is commonly followed by to and the destination country. Of course, emigrate and immigrate are two ways to describe the same process—people who are emigrating are also immigrating (if they leave, they have to go somewhere). But there are good reasons to use each word in different situations. For example, one country may be a common destination for people to immigrate to, while another may be a place that people are frequently emigrating from. The words migrate and immigrate are more likely to be used to describe such relocation in a general way (that is, a way that takes both the starting point and the destination into account), whereas emigrate is almost always about the starting point. Example: The lack of employment has caused a significant number of people to emigrate, with many highly skilled workers leaving the country.
Synonym Usage
See migrate.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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reemigrateverb (used without object)
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emigrativeadjective
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emigratoryadjective
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unemigratingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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emigratesimple
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emigratessimple
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have emigratedperfect
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has emigratedperfect
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am emigratingprogressive
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are emigratingprogressive
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is emigratingprogressive
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have been emigratingperfect progressive
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has been emigratingperfect progressive
Past
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emigratedsimple
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had emigratedperfect
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was emigratingprogressive
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were emigratingprogressive
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had been emigratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of emigrate
First recorded in 1770–80; from Latin ēmīgrātus “moved away” (past participle of ēmīgrāre ), equivalent to ē- “from, away from, out of” ( see e- 1) + mīgrātus ( mīgr- “remove” + ātus verb suffix ( see -ate 1)
Explanation
If you move to a different country, you emigrate. For example, if you emigrate from Canada and go to Italy, you aren't on vacation — you are making Italy your new home. Benvenuti! The verb emigrate comes from the Latin word emigrare, which means “move away,” or “depart from a place.” The words emigrate and immigrate both mean that a person has decided to permanently live in a foreign country, but to emigrate is to leave your country, and to immigrate is to come into a new country. To emigrate is to exit.
Vocabulary lists containing emigrate
Commonly Confused Words, List 1
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"A Place to Call Home," Vocabulary from the research study
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Geography
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Zemlinsky did manage to emigrate to New York but died of pneumonia in 1942 without having been able to revive his career.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
Talented young Hungarians continued to emigrate to Western Europe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
Medics and analysts say Nigeria has a very low doctor-patient ratio, worsened by a massive "brain drain" as health professionals emigrate after being enticed by better working conditions abroad.
From BBC ● Jan. 15, 2026
Economic collapse and political repression led roughly 8 million Venezuelans to emigrate since 2014, making it one of the world’s largest displacement crises.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 3, 2026
The U.N. had made it easy to emigrate, difficult if not impossible to stay.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
The two lose contact for 12 years after Nora’s family emigrates to the United States and reconnect after Hae-sung finds her again on Facebook.
From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2024
The top prize for best feature went to drama Past Lives, about childhood sweethearts in South Korea who are separated when one emigrates to the US.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2023
“No one emigrates from their country because they want to. One migrates because you have basic needs and there isn’t support in your native country,” she said, starting to cry.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 6, 2023
She drew upon these feelings to create “Other Words for Home,” a novel in verse about a girl who emigrates from Syria and tries to find a place for herself in the United States.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 29, 2022
Paul, birth and education, 321-2; emigrates to England, 322; embarks for Holland, 323; a cadet in the Dutch army, 324; sails for England, 325; encounters a storm, 326; with the army of William III.,
From The Huguenots in France by Smiles, Samuel
Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
My love for the Fourth comes from my grandfather, who emigrated to this country from Lebanon.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
Her family were originally from Maesteg in Bridgend county, and emigrated to Australia during the 1950s.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
Su, 56, emigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan as a child and holds three electrical engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 2026
In 1921, when he was eighteen, the family emigrated to Russia.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
That simple, honorable point about the dignity of emigrating remains painfully controversial in Dean’s home country and here.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
The United States is looking to give former Afghan allies stuck in Qatar a choice between emigrating to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo or returning to their Taliban-ruled homeland, an activist said Tuesday.
From Barron's ● Apr. 21, 2026
Born in Dublin in 1623, Downing spent his childhood in London before emigrating to New England with his family as part of the Puritan migration.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
And he, as a young boy, was part of the avocado trade before emigrating to the United States.
From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2026
Then, through a series of misadventures, the family had ended up in China, finally emigrating to Canada in the twentieth century.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
