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:
These are not in general trifling; for the Lama is frequently inconsiderate enough towards his followers to transmigrate in a part of the country at once distant and difficult of access.
From The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 by Various
"Frogs," interposed Musaello, "must have been experimental philosophers, and experimental philosophers must all transmigrate into frogs."
From Literary Remains, Volume 1 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
When the saint of Djachi-Loumbo, when the Bandchan-Remboutchi dies, he will not transmigrate as heretofore, in Further Thibet.
From Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China During the years 1844-5-6 Volume 2 by Évariste Régis Huc
When the Lama dies, his soul enters immediately into the body of some child, so that he is simply said to transmigrate.
From The Student's Mythology A Compendium of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Hindoo, Chinese, Thibetian, Scandinavian, Celtic, Aztec, and Peruvian Mythologies by Catherine Ann White
According to the Pythagoreans, human souls transmigrate after death into animals.
From History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 2 of 2) by William Edward Hartpole Lecky
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
And thus I transmigrated from one thing into another, in a seemingly endless procession of lives, experiencing all the peculiar sensations of the many bodies I temporarily inhabited.
From Born Again by Alfred Lawson
In France, as I have said, Richardson found congenial hearers, and Clarissa's soul doubtless transmigrated into the heroine of the 'Nouvelle Héloïse.'
From Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) by Sir Leslie Stephen
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
Novels are getting restless, shrugging off their expensive papery husks and transmigrating digitally into other forms.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
She says that the "revolution of souls" was in reality only the revolving of the atoms of the bodies which are continually transmigrating from one body to another throughout the various kingdoms of nature.
From Reincarnation A Study in Human Evolution by Fred Rothwell
I laughed, albeit in no smiling mood; for I have been transmigrating from one room to another, and your packet found me half tired and half excited, and whole grave.
From The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) by Sir Frederic G. (Frederic George) Kenyon
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