transmigrate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to move or pass from one place to another.
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to migrate from one country to another in order to settle there.
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(of the soul) to be reborn after death in another body.
verb (used with object)
verb
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to move from one place, state, or stage to another
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(of souls) to pass from one body into another at death
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of transmigrate
1400–50; late Middle English < Latin trānsmigrātus (past participle of trānsmigrāre to depart, migrate). See trans-, migrate
Explanation
You're most likely to come across the word transmigrate in a religious context. Your soul, some people believe, will transmigrate into a new body after death. Another way to say transmigrate is reincarnate, or be born again after death. Many religions believe that people transmigrate after they die, including Buddhism and Hinduism as well as some Native American beliefs. Rarely, the verb transmigrate is used to mean "move to a new country," although migrate is much more common. The root is the Latin word transmigrat, "move from one place to another," from the prefix trans, "across or beyond," and migratus, "to move."
Vocabulary lists containing transmigrate
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:
Then we must cause our imaginary Frenchman to transmigrate into the body of a small, plump, weakly printer of the eighteenth century.
From Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) by Stephen, Leslie, Sir
The Vedânta is on the one hand a scheme of salvation for liberating souls which transmigrate unceasingly in a world ruled by a personal God.
From Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2 by Eliot, Charles, Sir
The Maricopas, by the Gila, believe when they die they shall transmigrate into birds, beasts, and reptiles, and shall return to the banks of the Colorado, whence they were driven by the Yumas.
From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by Alger, William Rounseville
From this veracious narrative we gather that sometimes the souls of the dead, instead of going away to the spirit-land, transmigrate into the bodies of animals.
From The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia by Frazer, James George, Sir
The Druids of old Gaul believed that the souls of men transmigrate into those bodies whose habits and characters they most resemble.
From Five Lectures on Reincarnation by Abhedananda, Swami
Whether the soul of Georges transmigrated is a matter for metaphysicians.
From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2015
SAWtooth productions like Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up are basically transmigrated American soul tempered down and slicked up into a formula that makes fashion as much as music.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was understandable; though he had been a "vers libre bard" before his death, his soul had transmigrated into the body of an ambitious cockroach.
From Time Magazine Archive
Still worse, as his religion transmigrated into other lands, it became itself a history of transformation, until to-day no religion on earth seems to be such a kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria.
From The Religions of Japan From the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by Griffis, William Elliot
Many the Manichaans, for instance taught that human souls transmigrated not only through the lowest animal bodies but even through all forms of vegetable life.
From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by Alger, William Rounseville
That outlives us.That starts off wholly physical and thenis slowly transmigrating as it must,a voice, a face, a bike left on the lawn,because love's also made of metaphorsof other things.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 24, 2011
This quality is perhaps best illustrated by Haldane's conversion to vegetarianism under the impact of the Hindu doctrine of transmigrating souls.
From Time Magazine Archive
Novels are getting restless, shrugging off their expensive papery husks and transmigrating digitally into other forms.
From Time Magazine Archive
Whoever he may be to whom this exposition of the divine nature is made, he reaps its highest reward, the emanatory principium itself operating to the highest end of the transmigrating souls.
From The Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha Review of the Different Systems of Hindu Philosophy by Acharya, Madhava
It was the soul of a usurer, inhabiting now the body of a war-captain, now transmigrating into that of a huckster.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 05 by Carlyle, Thomas
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.
