resident

American  

[rez-i-duhnt] / ˈrɛz ɪ dənt /

noun

residents plural

1. a person who resides in a place.

2. a physician who joins the medical staff of a hospital as a salaried employee for a specified period to gain advanced training usually in a particular field, being in full-time attendance at the hospital and often living on the premises.

3. a diplomatic representative, inferior in rank to an ambassador, residing at a foreign court.

4. (formerly) a representative of the British governor general at a court in India.

5. (formerly) the governor of a residency in the Dutch East Indies.

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adjective

1. residing; dwelling in a place.

2. living or staying at a place in discharge of duty.

3. (of qualities) existing; intrinsic.

4. (of birds) not migratory.

5. Computers.

   1. encoded and permanently available to a computer user, as a font in a printer's ROM or software on a CD-ROM.

   2. (of a computer program) currently active or standing by in computer memory.

resident British  

/ ˈrɛzɪdənt /

noun

1. a person who resides in a place

2. Former name: inmate.  social welfare an occupant of a welfare agency home

3. (esp formerly) a representative of the British government in a British protectorate

4. (esp in the 17th century) a diplomatic representative ranking below an ambassador

5. (in India, formerly) a representative of the British governor general at the court of a native prince

6. a bird or other animal that does not migrate

7. a physician who lives in the hospital where he or she works while undergoing specialist training after completing his or her internship Compare house physician

8. a junior doctor, esp a house officer, who lives in the hospital in which he or she works

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adjective

1. living in a place; residing

2. living or staying at a place in order to discharge a duty, etc

3. (of qualities, characteristics, etc) existing or inherent (in)

4. (of birds and other animals) not in the habit of migrating

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• residentship
  noun
• pseudoresident
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• residents
  plural

Etymology

Origin of resident

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Middle French, from Latin resident- (stem of residēns ), present participle of residēre “to reside”; see reside, -ent

Explanation

A resident is someone who lives somewhere particular, or a doctor-in-training who takes care of the patients at a hospital under the supervision of other doctors. You are a resident of wherever you live — your house, town, planet. (Let's assume we're all residents of Earth.) It's where you were born or where you've lived for awhile. Doctors who have their medical licenses but need more training become residents of hospitals. Animals that don't migrate are residents, too. Although it's usually a noun, it can be an adjective, like in the horror movie no one wants to live in, "Resident Evil."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

resident residents

“My heritage was very much on my mind,” the 68-year-old Long Island, New York, resident said.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

Brooklyn resident Jenna Edwards always assumed she and her husband would have children, but they had trouble conceiving.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

Following the tragedy, West Mersea resident Stephen Vince said: "We should have done more about signage."

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

The findings, published in Nature Medicine, point to changes in microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, as a potentially important focus for future Alzheimer's treatments.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026

In contrast, another resident complained of the local employment opportunities and lack of shopping choices.

From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry

Sjöblom got permission from national and local governments to go ahead in January, but now faces appeals from local residents.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

In some areas, videos containing false information about power outages prompted residents to panic buy emergency supplies.

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

A Polish billionaire is paying for a giant statue of the Virgin Mary that residents of the village of Konotopie hope will put them on the pilgrimage map.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

Here, the promise that local law enforcement keeps people safe is often hard for residents to take at face value.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

I know he often goes there to watch Jeopardy! and play cribbage with some of the other residents in the afternoons.

From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam

Related Words

• citizen
• dweller
• inhabitant
• inmate
• local
• native
• resident
• tenant