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.
Related Words
See migrate.
Other Word Forms
- emigrative adjective
- emigratory adjective
- reemigrate verb (used without object)
- unemigrating adjective
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” ( e- 1 ) + mīgrātus ( mīgr- “remove” + ātus verb suffix ( -ate 1 )
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.
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
"If I don't find a job here, I'll have to emigrate again. We have no choice. We can't starve," he added.
From Barron's • Mar. 11, 2026
Economic collapse and political repression led roughly 8 million Venezuelans to emigrate since 2014, making it one of the world’s largest displacement crises.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 3, 2026
By 1939, Hungary’s crackdown against Jews—and Senesh’s emerging identity as a Zionist—led her to emigrate to the British Mandate for Palestine.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 17, 2025
After that, they were able to emigrate to Canada.
From "Lost Boy, Lost Girl" by John Bul Dau
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.
