resident

American  

[rez-i-duhnt] / ˈrɛz ɪ dənt /

noun

• residents
  plural

1. a person who resides in a place.

2. a physician who joins the medical staff of a hospital as a salaried employee for a specified period to gain advanced training usually in a particular field, being in full-time attendance at the hospital and often living on the premises.

3. a diplomatic representative, inferior in rank to an ambassador, residing at a foreign court.

4. (formerly) a representative of the British governor general at a court in India.

5. (formerly) the governor of a residency in the Dutch East Indies.

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adjective

1. residing; dwelling in a place.

2. living or staying at a place in discharge of duty.

3. (of qualities) existing; intrinsic.

4. (of birds) not migratory.

5. Computers.

   1. encoded and permanently available to a computer user, as a font in a printer's ROM or software on a CD-ROM.

   2. (of a computer program) currently active or standing by in computer memory.

resident British  

/ ˈrɛzɪdənt /

noun

1. a person who resides in a place

2. Former name: inmate.  social welfare an occupant of a welfare agency home

3. (esp formerly) a representative of the British government in a British protectorate

4. (esp in the 17th century) a diplomatic representative ranking below an ambassador

5. (in India, formerly) a representative of the British governor general at the court of a native prince

6. a bird or other animal that does not migrate

7. a physician who lives in the hospital where he or she works while undergoing specialist training after completing his or her internship Compare house physician

8. a junior doctor, esp a house officer, who lives in the hospital in which he or she works

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adjective

1. living in a place; residing

2. living or staying at a place in order to discharge a duty, etc

3. (of qualities, characteristics, etc) existing or inherent (in)

4. (of birds and other animals) not in the habit of migrating

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• residentship
  noun
• pseudoresident
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• residents
  plural

Etymology

Origin of resident

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Middle French, from Latin resident- (stem of residēns ), present participle of residēre “to reside”; see reside, -ent

Explanation

A resident is someone who lives somewhere particular, or a doctor-in-training who takes care of the patients at a hospital under the supervision of other doctors. You are a resident of wherever you live — your house, town, planet. (Let's assume we're all residents of Earth.) It's where you were born or where you've lived for awhile. Doctors who have their medical licenses but need more training become residents of hospitals. Animals that don't migrate are residents, too. Although it's usually a noun, it can be an adjective, like in the horror movie no one wants to live in, "Resident Evil."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

resident residents

In Arcadia, City Council candidates must be at least 18 years old, a California resident, a registered city voter and a resident of the district they seek to represent.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

For local resident Larry Andrews the group has been a refuge following the death of his wife last year.

From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026

Bedminster resident Carol Levin, 67, said she showed up at the meeting because Trump “doesn’t have a very good track record regarding his building projects going the way they are promised.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026

Another possibility is that it arrived with a new resident who brought different pottery traditions to the settlement.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026

He also enjoyed his status as the school’s resident chess player.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady

His account is one of the many such stories of coerced expulsion — including those of other Los Angeles residents — featured in the bilingual exhibition.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

There the officers oversaw readiness planning and procedures for a mobilization of the region’s residents, with details on how to house, feed and arm them, said Western intelligence officials.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

Many of the AI generated images have been centred on the Irish counties of Limerick and Wexford, where shaky videos purportedly showed the character wandering through the streets, causing alarm and confusion among residents.

From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026

According to CTU, its approval among Chicago residents has fallen “from 70% to 28%.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

When a tsunami swept through in the year 869, many of the village’s residents had rushed to high ground there.

From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland

Related Words

• citizen
• dweller
• inhabitant
• inmate
• local
• native
• resident
• tenant