emigrate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Usage
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.
Synonym Usage
See migrate.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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reemigrateverb (used without object)
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emigrativeadjective
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emigratoryadjective
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unemigratingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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emigratesimple
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emigratessimple
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have emigratedperfect
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has emigratedperfect
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am emigratingprogressive
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are emigratingprogressive
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is emigratingprogressive
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have been emigratingperfect progressive
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has been emigratingperfect progressive
Past
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emigratedsimple
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had emigratedperfect
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was emigratingprogressive
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were emigratingprogressive
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had been emigratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of emigrate
First recorded in 1770–80; from Latin ēmīgrātus “moved away” (past participle of ēmīgrāre ), equivalent to ē- “from, away from, out of” ( see e- 1) + mīgrātus ( mīgr- “remove” + ātus verb suffix ( see -ate 1)
Explanation
If you move to a different country, you emigrate. For example, if you emigrate from Canada and go to Italy, you aren't on vacation — you are making Italy your new home. Benvenuti! The verb emigrate comes from the Latin word emigrare, which means “move away,” or “depart from a place.” The words emigrate and immigrate both mean that a person has decided to permanently live in a foreign country, but to emigrate is to leave your country, and to immigrate is to come into a new country. To emigrate is to exit.
Vocabulary lists containing emigrate
Commonly Confused Words, List 1
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"A Place to Call Home," Vocabulary from the research study
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Geography
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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:
Zemlinsky did manage to emigrate to New York but died of pneumonia in 1942 without having been able to revive his career.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
Albania has been in a demographic crisis for decades, as people emigrate abroad in search of better work prospects.
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
The ordeal eventually led Ms. Müller to emigrate to West Berlin in 1987, a bureaucratic torment that she describes here in deliberately tedious detail, to mirror the experience.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
She doesn't want to emigrate like the millions who have fled Venezuela's economic crisis but longs for political and economic reform, saying everything is "too expensive", education is a "privilege", and non-exploitative jobs are rare.
From BBC ● Mar. 17, 2026
To himself John Isidore thought acidly, And it’s gone away for me, too, without my having to emigrate.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
The two lose contact for 12 years after Nora’s family emigrates to the United States and reconnect after Hae-sung finds her again on Facebook.
From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2024
The top prize for best feature went to drama Past Lives, about childhood sweethearts in South Korea who are separated when one emigrates to the US.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2023
“No one emigrates from their country because they want to. One migrates because you have basic needs and there isn’t support in your native country,” she said, starting to cry.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 6, 2023
The pair meet in a Los Angeles classroom in second grade after Jane emigrates from Taiwan.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 4, 2022
All who can, leave Prussia—and only blockheads or hypocrites are let in, with the exception of physical science; whoever can do so turns engineer, or goes into a house of business, or emigrates.
From Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography, and Antiquities by Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
My love for the Fourth comes from my grandfather, who emigrated to this country from Lebanon.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
Su, 56, emigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan as a child and holds three electrical engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 2026
The couple emigrated to Canada in 1925, married the following year and had three sons.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
Gitl and Yitzchak had emigrated to Israel, where they lived, close friends, until well into their seventies.
From "The Devil's Arithmetic" by Jane Yolen
The 70-year-old plays up her personal story as the daughter of Jewish parents who she says "barely survived" the Holocaust before emigrating to Costa Rica.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
That simple, honorable point about the dignity of emigrating remains painfully controversial in Dean’s home country and here.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
The menu revolves around the food of Barsoom’s native Egypt, where she lived before emigrating to Canada in 2000.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
Many Britons have taken the leap by emigrating to Australia for a "better life", but one man has taken the plunge in order to build a better life back home in Wales.
From BBC ● May 17, 2026
Adnan had done well since emigrating over a decade earlier; he owned and managed four Subway franchises in New Orleans.
From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers
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.
