emigrate

[em-i-greyt]

verb (used without object)

emigrated, emigrating 

1. to leave one country or region to settle in another; migrate.

   to emigrate from Ireland to Australia.

emigrate

/ ˈɛmɪˌɡreɪt /

verb

1. (intr) to leave one place or country, esp one's native country, in order to settle in another Compare immigrate

Other Word Forms

• emigrative adjective
• reemigrate verb (used without object)
• unemigrating adjective
• emigratory adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of emigrate¹

First recorded in 1770–80; from Latin ēmīgrātus “moved away” (past participle of ēmīgrāre ), equivalent to ē- “from, away from, out of” ( e- ¹ ) + mīgrātus ( mīgr- “remove” + ātus verb suffix ( -ate ¹ )

Word History and Origins

Origin of emigrate¹

C18: from Latin ēmīgrāre, from mīgrāre to depart, _migrate

Synonym Study

See migrate.

Example Sentences

Lapowski had emigrated in 1869 and built a successful business, earning enough to send his son to Worcester Academy in Massachusetts, a feeder school for Harvard.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

By 1939, Hungary’s crackdown against Jews—and Senesh’s emerging identity as a Zionist—led her to emigrate to the British Mandate for Palestine.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Both had emigrated to Australia, part of a wave of rural depopulation as farm workers were replaced by mechanisation.

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In 1921, when he was eighteen, the family emigrated to Russia.

Read more on Literature

Madees Khoury, the general manager of Taybeh Brewing Co., is one of those who choose to stay in town, though she knows at least one family gearing up to emigrate in the coming weeks.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• depart 
• migrate 
• quit 

When To Use

What does emigrate mean?

Emigrate means to permanently leave home in one country or region to settle in another.The act or occurrence of emigrating is called emigration. A person who is emigrating or has emigrated can be called an emigrant.What’s the difference between emigrate, immigrate, and migrate?To migrate is to move from one place to another (and perhaps back and forth). To emigrate is to move out, and to immigrate is to move in. For this reason, the word emigrate is commonly followed by from and the home country, whereas immigrate is commonly followed by to and the destination country.Of course, emigrate and immigrate are two ways to describe the same process—people who are emigrating are also immigrating (if they leave, they have to go somewhere).But there are good reasons to use each word in different situations. For example, one country may be a common destination for people to immigrate to, while another may be a place that people are frequently emigrating from.The words migrate and immigrate are more likely to be used to describe such relocation in a general way (that is, a way that takes both the starting point and the destination into account), whereas emigrate is almost always about the starting point.Example: The lack of employment has caused a significant number of people to emigrate, with many highly skilled workers leaving the country.