migrate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to go from one country, region, or place to another.
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to pass periodically from one region or climate to another, as certain birds, fishes, and animals.
The birds migrate southward in the winter.
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to shift, as from one system, mode of operation, or enterprise to another.
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Physiology. (of a cell, tissue, etc.) to move from one region of the body to another, as in embryonic development.
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Chemistry.
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(of ions) to move toward an electrode during electrolysis.
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(of atoms within a molecule) to change position.
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(at British universities) to change or transfer from one college to another.
verb
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to go from one region, country, or place of abode to settle in another, esp in a foreign country
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(of birds, fishes, etc) to journey between different areas at specific times of the year
Synonym Usage
Migrate, emigrate, immigrate are used of changing one's abode from one country or part of a country to another. To migrate is to make such a move either once or repeatedly: to migrate from Ireland to the United States. To emigrate is to leave a country, usually one's own (and take up residence in another): Each year many people emigrate from Europe. To immigrate is to enter and settle in a country not one's own: There are many inducements to immigrate to South America. Migrate is applied both to people or to animals that move from one region to another, especially periodically; the other terms are generally applied to movements of people.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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migratornoun
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intermigrateverb (used without object)
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remigrateverb (used without object)
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nonmigratingadjective
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unmigratingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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migratesimple
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migratessimple
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have migratedperfect
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has migratedperfect
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am migratingprogressive
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are migratingprogressive
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is migratingprogressive
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have been migratingperfect progressive
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has been migratingperfect progressive
Past
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migratedsimple
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had migratedperfect
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was migratingprogressive
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were migratingprogressive
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had been migratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of migrate
First recorded in 1690–1700; from Latin migrātus (past participle of migrāre “to move from place to place, change position or abode”), equivalent to migrā- verb stem + -tus past participle suffix
Explanation
To migrate means to move from one place to another, sometimes part of a back-and-forth pattern, and sometimes to stay. When we think of the word migrate we think of movement from place to place. Sometimes that movement is seasonal, as when birds migrate north in summer and south in winter. But sometimes a person or group will migrate from one place to another with the intention of settling there. In both cases, there is a definite shift in locales, one temporary, the other permanent.
Vocabulary lists containing migrate
Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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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:
They are expected to leave the South Lakeland nature reserve in September and migrate to the Iberian Peninsula or West Africa.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
He essentially bet that corporate clients running critical programs on their own mainframes purchased from IBM couldn’t or wouldn’t migrate to remote data centers offered by Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
I guess if Letterboxd decides to sell to a media company and becomes objectively worse, disappointed users can migrate to A24’s physical, paper-bound film logs.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026
The movement was dubbed the Flamingo Revolution as the pink birds migrate to a nature reserve where the project is planned.
From Barron's ● Jul. 4, 2026
Living on this artificial inland archipelago, native peoples ate a diet heavy in fish, which migrate and spawn in the flooded savannas.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Harmon alerted stakeholders, including Aiello, who was immediately concerned about how the wire might affect a herd of bighorn sheep that migrates across the border.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
When temperatures hit freezing, the northern jet set reliably migrates to St. Barts, a little slice of France in the Caribbean.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 31, 2026
Some music insiders now hope that migrates over to music video sets.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2025
The population of bowhead whales that migrates between the Bering and Beaufort Seas each year is a conservation success story, with today's population nearing -- if not exceeding -- pre-commercial whaling numbers.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 21, 2024
We separate and Muqtada migrates toward the dining room and the smell of food.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
The prevailing theory suggested that blue cones formed in the center of the retina and later migrated outward.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 9, 2026
Since rates are still so much lower in Japan than elsewhere, lots of local savings have migrated abroad.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
Birds in the current group in Guildford have migrated as far as North Africa in the past.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
Even those whose families migrated here seeking a “better life” can speak to how uneven the American dream materializes across class, race and country of origin.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2026
The mountain lions had either died or migrated, and the humans were now facing the same two alternatives.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
Without that protected region, migrating moons could not survive inside Saturn's disk.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026
A couple of weeks ago, Hoisington concluded that equilibrium U.S. inflation is migrating up toward 3.5% to 4.5%, and that both inflation and long-term Treasury yields will trend higher.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
Officials have previously said they are investigating if the disease arrived in Australia via birds migrating from the sub-Antarctic.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
“We have people from so many different countries migrating to Inglewood, and there’s an explosive sense of community pride,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
The following spring the migrating robins began to return to the campus as usual.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
