immigrate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to come to a country of which one is not a native, usually for permanent residence.
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to pass or come into a new habitat or place, as an organism.
verb (used with object)
verb
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(intr) to come to a place or country of which one is not a native in order to settle there Compare emigrate
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(intr) (of an animal or plant) to migrate to a new geographical area
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(tr) to introduce or bring in as an immigrant
Related Words
See migrate.
Other Word Forms
- immigrator noun
- immigratory adjective
- unimmigrating adjective
Etymology
Origin of immigrate
First recorded in 1615–25; from Latin immigrātus (past participle of immigrāre “to move into”); im- 1, migrate
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.
When my family immigrated from China to America, I was surprised that our first shared apartment was on a street with hardly a single English sign.
From Los Angeles Times
Her grandma immigrated to Britain in the 1950s, and she says that being uprooted and starting again was something that she never got over.
From Literature
Both of their Jewish Iranian families immigrated in 1979 to Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times
While his father immigrated to New Jersey in 1940, Samaras and his mother remained in Greece for nine more years.
A former migrant farm worker, Noriega immigrated to the United States from Sonora, Mexico, in the 1950s.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
