expatriate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to banish (a person) from their native country.
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to withdraw (oneself ) from residence in one's native country.
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to withdraw (oneself ) from allegiance to one's country.
verb (used without object)
adjective
noun
adjective
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resident in a foreign country
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exiled or banished from one's native country
an expatriate American
noun
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a person who lives in a foreign country
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an exile; expatriate person
verb
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to exile (oneself) from one's native country or cause (another) to go into exile
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to deprive (oneself or another) of citizenship
Usage
What does expatriate mean? An expatriate is a person who has moved from their native country to another country permanently or for an extended period of time. The word expatriate can refer to people who have been forced to live in another country (such as due to having been exiled or banished), but it most commonly refers to people who have chosen to relocate to work in the new country or to retire there. Expatriates may or may not become citizens of the countries they move to, and they may or may not retain their original citizenship. If the word expatriate sounds like it has just about the same meaning as the word immigrant, that’s because it does. But expatriate is used much more narrowly. It can imply (or is at least associated with) a certain amount of wealth and privilege—things not implied by or associated with the word immigrant. The word expatriate is especially applied to Westerners and used by them to refer to themselves. A common and informal short form is expat. The act or process of becoming an expatriate is called expatriation. The word expatriate is commonly preceded by the person’s original nationality, as in an American expatriate in Paris. Expatriate can also be used as a verb meaning to withdraw one’s residence in or allegiance to their native country, or to banish a citizen. When expatriate is used as a verb, the last syllable is pronounced like ate [ eyt ]. Expatriate can also be used as an adjective describing a person who has become an expatriate or a person who has been exiled. Example: The city has such a large community of British expatriates that there are multiple pubs that serve as popular social spots for them.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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expatriatesimple
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expatriatessimple
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have expatriatedperfect
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has expatriatedperfect
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am expatriatingprogressive
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are expatriatingprogressive
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is expatriatingprogressive
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have been expatriatingperfect progressive
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has been expatriatingperfect progressive
Past
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expatriatedsimple
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had expatriatedperfect
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was expatriatingprogressive
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were expatriatingprogressive
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had been expatriatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of expatriate
First recorded in 1760–70; from Medieval Latin expatriātus (past participle of expatriāre “to banish”), equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + patri(a) “native land” + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
An expatriate is someone who lives in another country by choice. If you leave your split-level ranch in Ohio and move to a writers' commune in Paris for good, you've become an expatriate. Expatriate can also be a verb, so that American in Paris has expatriated. There was a scene of expatriates, or expats, living in Paris in the roaring '20s that included writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. The word used to mean to get kicked out of your native country — it's from the French word expatrier which means "banish." The prefix ex means "out of" and the Latin patria "one's native country," but the word took a turn and now refers to people who left without getting shoved out.
Vocabulary lists containing expatriate
Not Your Father's Word List: Pater, Patr
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Born a Crime
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"What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?" Vocabulary from the short story
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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:
Duccio Lopresto, an Italian expatriate who works at the Dubai office of U.S.-headquartered Sotheby’s, said the strikes came as a shock.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 28, 2026
The embassy in Tehran usually counts around 30 expatriate employees, as well as a few dozen local staff members.
From Barron's ● Jan. 12, 2026
The club had been largely an expatriate German club that also had Jewish members.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2025
Perched in his art-filled château in the south of France, the British expatriate spent years hurling invectives at, falling out with or blatantly undermining an astonishing number of people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
As a former trading colony, South Africa has always had a large expatriate community.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
Furthermore, many specialized engineers and welders have left as Western contractors evacuated expatriates from the conflict zone.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
Witnesses say the drones hit Lake Kivu and a two-storey residential building frequently occupied by expatriates and aid workers in the rebel-held city early on Wednesday morning.
From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026
Once expatriates were included, their voice would aid democracy, he said.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
Since 2008, the U.S. has required expatriates with assets above $2 million pay a steep “exit tax” on the appreciation of all their property.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2026
As with so many expatriates who end up in Africa, it is not clear what brought him there.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
The story follows a Russian writer named M, who has expatriated to someplace in Europe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026
Along with his second wife, Shirley Graham, Du Bois expatriated to Ghana in his final years, where he joined an ensemble of Pan-Africanists dedicated to President Kwame Nkrumah’s extraordinary experiment in postcolonial nation-building.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2023
Department of Justice says was an early promoter of bitcoin who expatriated himself from the United States in 2014.
From Reuters ● Jan. 23, 2023
In London in the 1950s, Soros was a student of the expatriated Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who championed the notion of an “open society,” in which individual liberty, pluralism and free inquiry prevailed.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2018
Florentines, Genoese, and others, driven away by revolutions, did for France what in after-times expatriated Frenchmen did for other countries to which they were compelled to flee by reason of tyranny at home.
From Cities of the Dawn by Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
Not too long ago, I was speaking with a friend who recently left journalism for much more lucrative pastures, and who is seriously thinking about expatriating from the United States.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 24, 2023
As if we needed another reason to dream longingly of expatriating.
From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2018
He did this by expatriating money using mirror trades.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 22, 2016
Nobuoka also said she thinks about expatriating but still hopes the country will change.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 18, 2016
We might be led to say, that man, when expatriating himself; is desirous that everything should change country with him.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 by Ross, Thomasina
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.
