Emigrants

/ˈɛmɪɡrənts/

nounmedium📊CommonGeneral
1 meaning2 questions

Definitions

1

People who leave their own country to live in another.

/ˈɛmɪɡrənts/

nounneutralmedium
General

People leaving a country to settle in another.

The ship carried thousands of emigrants seeking a better life in the New World.

💡 Simply: Emigrants are like people who pack their bags and move from one country to a brand new one to live. Like, if you moved from France to Canada to live there forever, you'd be an emigrant from France!

👶 For kids: An emigrant is someone who leaves their home country to go live in a different one.

More Examples

2

The government provided support to help emigrants settle into their new country.

3

Economic hardship often drives people to become emigrants.

How It's Used

History

"Many emigrants left Europe in the 19th century to seek new opportunities in America."

Social Science

"The study focuses on the challenges faced by emigrants adapting to new cultures."

From Latin *ēmigrāre* ('to move away'), from *ex* ('out') + *migrāre* ('to move'). The term has been used since the 17th century to describe people leaving a country to settle elsewhere.

The term was frequently used in historical documents, especially during periods of significant migration, such as the mass movements of people from Europe to North America and Australia.

Memory tip

Think of 'exit' and 'migrate' – they are exiting their home country to migrate somewhere new.

Word Origin

LanguageLatin
Original meaning

"to move"

European emigrantsemigrants fromwaves of emigrantslarge numbers of emigrants

Common misspellings

emmigrantsimmigrants

Usage

40%Spoken
60%Written