birthplace

American  

[burth-plays] / ˈbɜrθˌpleɪs /

noun

• birthplaces
  plural

1. place of birth or origin.

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birthplace British  

/ ˈbɜːθˌpleɪs /

noun

1. the place where someone was born or where something originated

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• birthplaces
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of birthplace

First recorded in 1600–10; birth + place

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Explanation

The city or country where someone is born is their birthplace. If you move to Atlanta, Georgia, you can tell your friends you live in the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. You'll often find the word birthplace describing the origin of a famous person, whether you're visiting the birthplace of Elvis Presley in Mississippi or reading about Tuskegee, Alabama, the birthplace of Rosa Parks. Birthplace also shows up on official documents like passport applications, which require you to prove your birthplace by submitting a birth certificate. The Middle English version of this word was birthstede, from stede, or "place."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

birthplace birthplaces

A new chemical analysis challenges earlier theories about the asteroid's birthplace and suggests that Jupiter played an important role in shaping the materials from which Bennu and other ancient objects formed.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 24, 2026

Others joked that a protest about commodity futures was distinctly on brand for the University of Chicago, the birthplace of the Chicago School of economics.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026

The flame is lit during a ceremony at Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games, using a mirror and light from the sun.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026

In the birthplace of Venezuela's oil industry, thick black crude seeps through cracks in the earth, and the air is heavy with the smell of gas, leaving visitors dizzy.

From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026

We will try to understand his choices by looking carefully at what is known about him and his world—his birthplace, his adoptive homes in Athens and Alexandria, his predecessors, colleagues, and enemies.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro

Fifa investigators said the grandparents' original birth certificates showed they had been born in countries like Argentina and Spain - all corresponding with the players' birthplaces.

From BBC ● Jan. 28, 2026

That pattern matches a practice ethnographers call patrilocality, in which men stay put while women leave their birthplaces to find mates, a pattern also seen in ancient European farmers, among others.

From Science Magazine ● Apr. 24, 2024

In the icy regions of their birthplaces, where planets receive little warming radiation from the star, the sub-Neptunes should indeed have sizes missing from the observed distribution.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 9, 2024

Each year, hordes of them surge from the ocean into Canada’s rivers and streams, swimming back to their birthplaces to spawn.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 30, 2023

There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream.

From "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie

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