expatriate
Americanverb (used with object)
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expatriates,
present (3rd person singular)
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expatriated,
past participle, past
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expatriating
present participle
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to banish (a person) from their native country.
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to withdraw (oneself ) from residence in one's native country.
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to withdraw (oneself ) from allegiance to one's country.
verb (used without object)
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expatriates,
present (3rd person singular)
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expatriated,
past participle, past
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expatriating
present participle
adjective
noun
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expatriates
plural
adjective
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resident in a foreign country
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exiled or banished from one's native country
an expatriate American
noun
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a person who lives in a foreign country
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an exile; expatriate person
verb
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to exile (oneself) from one's native country or cause (another) to go into exile
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to deprive (oneself or another) of citizenship
Usage
What does expatriate mean? An expatriate is a person who has moved from their native country to another country permanently or for an extended period of time. The word expatriate can refer to people who have been forced to live in another country (such as due to having been exiled or banished), but it most commonly refers to people who have chosen to relocate to work in the new country or to retire there. Expatriates may or may not become citizens of the countries they move to, and they may or may not retain their original citizenship. If the word expatriate sounds like it has just about the same meaning as the word immigrant, that’s because it does. But expatriate is used much more narrowly. It can imply (or is at least associated with) a certain amount of wealth and privilege—things not implied by or associated with the word immigrant. The word expatriate is especially applied to Westerners and used by them to refer to themselves. A common and informal short form is expat. The act or process of becoming an expatriate is called expatriation. The word expatriate is commonly preceded by the person’s original nationality, as in an American expatriate in Paris. Expatriate can also be used as a verb meaning to withdraw one’s residence in or allegiance to their native country, or to banish a citizen. When expatriate is used as a verb, the last syllable is pronounced like ate [ eyt ]. Expatriate can also be used as an adjective describing a person who has become an expatriate or a person who has been exiled. Example: The city has such a large community of British expatriates that there are multiple pubs that serve as popular social spots for them.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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expatriatesimple
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expatriatessimple
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have expatriatedperfect
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has expatriatedperfect
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am expatriatingprogressive
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are expatriatingprogressive
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is expatriatingprogressive
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have been expatriatingperfect progressive
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has been expatriatingperfect progressive
Past
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expatriatedsimple
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had expatriatedperfect
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was expatriatingprogressive
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were expatriatingprogressive
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had been expatriatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of expatriate
First recorded in 1760–70; from Medieval Latin expatriātus (past participle of expatriāre “to banish”), equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + patri(a) “native land” + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
An expatriate is someone who lives in another country by choice. If you leave your split-level ranch in Ohio and move to a writers' commune in Paris for good, you've become an expatriate. Expatriate can also be a verb, so that American in Paris has expatriated. There was a scene of expatriates, or expats, living in Paris in the roaring '20s that included writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. The word used to mean to get kicked out of your native country — it's from the French word expatrier which means "banish." The prefix ex means "out of" and the Latin patria "one's native country," but the word took a turn and now refers to people who left without getting shoved out.
Vocabulary lists containing expatriate
Born a Crime
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Not Your Father's Word List: Pater, Patr
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"What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?" Vocabulary from the short story
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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:
The company focuses its offering on so-called digital nomads, and previously said it would target metropolitan areas with large expatriate communities to drive U.S. growth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
The closest it has come to playing an international match was when representative teams faced a Solomon Islands expatriate team in 1994 and a refugee side in 2014.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
In Canton, painters like Lam Qua headed ateliers devoted to Export art, adapting styles from expatriate artists such as George Chinnery to gain foreign clientele.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
Two expatriate workers were moderately hurt and four vehicles were damaged in the strike on Bukha, the Oman News Agency said.
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
In Brazilian terms, it was like abandoning a glamorous expatriate life in Paris to come back to Chicago.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
The long shadow of their war haunts all the expatriates of “The Sun Also Rises.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Skill shortages, it says, should be filled by returning German expatriates, automation and artificial intelligence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
Witnesses say the drones hit Lake Kivu and a two-storey residential building frequently occupied by expatriates and aid workers in the rebel-held city early on Wednesday morning.
From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026
The building is in Himbi, a residential neighbourhood of Goma on the shores of Lake Kivu where many expatriates, staff members and headquarters of humanitarian organisations are based.
From Barron's ● Mar. 11, 2026
She began to socialize with other American expatriates.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
The story follows a Russian writer named M, who has expatriated to someplace in Europe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026
The following year, an appraiser Ver hired to value his companies asked him in an email to provide the number of Bitcoins he owned when he expatriated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2025
Along with his second wife, Shirley Graham, Du Bois expatriated to Ghana in his final years, where he joined an ensemble of Pan-Africanists dedicated to President Kwame Nkrumah’s extraordinary experiment in postcolonial nation-building.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2023
Department of Justice says was an early promoter of bitcoin who expatriated himself from the United States in 2014.
From Reuters ● Jan. 23, 2023
Now I could no more brook living as tapestry in America than I could live as an American in Europe, expatriated and trivially evaporating amid beauties and comforts that were none of my native heritage.
From Atlantic Classics by Various
Not too long ago, I was speaking with a friend who recently left journalism for much more lucrative pastures, and who is seriously thinking about expatriating from the United States.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 24, 2023
As if we needed another reason to dream longingly of expatriating.
From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2018
He did this by expatriating money using mirror trades.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 22, 2016
Nobuoka also said she thinks about expatriating but still hopes the country will change.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 18, 2016
With this difference, that the Tarasconese, instead of expatriating themselves on foreign summits, are content with those they have in hand, or rather underfoot, at the gates of their town.
From Tartarin On The Alps by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
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.
