migrate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to go from one country, region, or place to another.
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to pass periodically from one region or climate to another, as certain birds, fishes, and animals.
The birds migrate southward in the winter.
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to shift, as from one system, mode of operation, or enterprise to another.
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Physiology. (of a cell, tissue, etc.) to move from one region of the body to another, as in embryonic development.
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Chemistry.
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(of ions) to move toward an electrode during electrolysis.
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(of atoms within a molecule) to change position.
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(at British universities) to change or transfer from one college to another.
verb
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to go from one region, country, or place of abode to settle in another, esp in a foreign country
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(of birds, fishes, etc) to journey between different areas at specific times of the year
Related Words
Migrate, emigrate, immigrate are used of changing one's abode from one country or part of a country to another. To migrate is to make such a move either once or repeatedly: to migrate from Ireland to the United States. To emigrate is to leave a country, usually one's own (and take up residence in another): Each year many people emigrate from Europe. To immigrate is to enter and settle in a country not one's own: There are many inducements to immigrate to South America. Migrate is applied both to people or to animals that move from one region to another, especially periodically; the other terms are generally applied to movements of people.
Other Word Forms
- intermigrate verb (used without object)
- migrator noun
- nonmigrating adjective
- remigrate verb (used without object)
- unmigrating adjective
Etymology
Origin of migrate
First recorded in 1690–1700; from Latin migrātus (past participle of migrāre “to move from place to place, change position or abode”), equivalent to migrā- verb stem + -tus past participle suffix
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.
Over time, the frozen onions migrated from impulse purchase to infrastructure.
From Salon
That book is an idiosyncratic account of the explorer’s life by Salvador de Madariaga, a Spanish historian, who insisted that Columbus was a Catalan crypto-Jew whose family had migrated to Genoa.
In the skies above us, billions of birds, many so small that they can fit in the palm of your hand, are migrating south for winter.
From BBC
He said it could be used when whales are migrating with their calves.
It is migrating up some of the decaying wells that litter the Permian, forcing companies and regulators to play a protracted—and expensive—game of whack-a-mole.
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.
