émigré

American  

[em-i-gray, ay-mee-gray] / ˈɛm ɪˌgreɪ, eɪ miˈgreɪ /

noun

• émigrés
  plural

1. an emigrant, especially a person who flees from their native land because of political conditions.

2. a person who fled from France because of opposition to or fear of the revolution that began in 1789.

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émigré British  

/ ˈɛmɪˌɡreɪ, emiɡre /

noun

1. an emigrant, esp one forced to leave his native country for political reasons

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Usage

What does émigré mean? An émigré is an emigrant, especially one who has fled their home country due to oppressive political conditions. An emigrant is any person who has emigrated or is emigrating—permanently leaving home in one country or region to settle in another. While emigrants can emigrate for a number of reasons, the word émigré typically implies that someone has fled political oppression or political conditions that they strongly disagree with. The word émigré is sometimes used in a more specific way to refer to a person who fled from France before, during, or after the French Revolution, which began in 1789. Such émigrés were often aristocrats who feared that they would be targeted by violence during the revolution or otherwise opposed it. The related word immigrant refers to someone who moves to a place, as opposed to away from it. Of course, émigrés are also immigrants since they have to settle somewhere after they leave. The word is sometimes seen without the accent marks (as emigre). Example: Thousands of émigrés fled Germany during the rise of Hitler in the 1930s.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• émigrés
  plural

Etymology

Origin of émigré

First recorded in 1785–95; from French: noun use of past participle of émigrer, from Latin ēmīgrāre to emigrate

Explanation

An emigre is someone who moves to a different country. As many as two million emigres left Russia during the three years after the Russian Revolution. The French émigré, "an emigrant," comes from the Latin emigrare, "depart from a place." You can use this word for anyone who departs their home country, but it usually describes people who leave for political reasons. Russian emigres found themselves in opposition to Russia’s new political climate and fled to countries all across Europe. During the American Revolution, many colonists who were loyal to Britain also became emigres, departing for Canada and Great Britain.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

émigré émigrés

“Always,” Ms. Korsgaard wryly notes of the Russian émigré, “order nestles side by side with ardor.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

But the life of a political émigré, increasingly out of touch and irrelevant, was not for him.

From BBC ● Feb. 16, 2024

But Russian émigré journalist Arkady Ostrovsky, in his book "The Invention of Russia," explains how that Wild West atmosphere came to exist in the first place.

From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2023

The Grunwald Center was established by German émigré Fred Grunwald in 1956 with an eye toward being a resource for students and for research.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2023

Fortunately the student was a recent émigré from Poland named Marie Curie.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

I was born in the United States, but my parents are Soviet émigrés and I grew up bilingual.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

They range from long-time expats to émigrés who have fast-tracked citizenship applications to new countries since the invasion began in 2022.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026

Salome Zourabichvili was born in France in 1952 into a prominent family of Georgian émigrés.

From BBC ● Dec. 27, 2024

A wedding has lured back two of the émigrés among them, but Claire, the bride-to-be, has always lived at home.

From New York Times ● Jan. 24, 2024

In time, these émigrés to the new continent would redraw its maps.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• emigrant