diaspora

noun di·as·po·ra \ dī-ˈas-p(ə-)rə , dē- \

Updated on: 11 Apr 2018

Definition of diaspora

1 capitalized Judaism

a : the Jews living outside Palestine or modern Israel

members of the Diaspora

b : the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside ancient Palestine after the Babylonian exile

c : the area outside ancient Palestine settled by Jews

2 a : people settled far from their ancestral homelands

members of the African diaspora

b : the place where these people live

c : the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland

the black diaspora to northern cities

—

diasporic

play \ˌdī-ə-ˈspȯr-ik\ adjective

See diaspora defined for English-language learners

Recent Examples of diaspora from the Web

Most Jews, in both the UK and the broader Jewish diaspora, do not agree with this view.

— zack beauchamp, Vox, "The UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis, explained," 29 Mar. 2018
Wealthy Russians have been flooding into London since the fall of the Soviet Union, and in the last 15 years the diaspora has snowballed as the city has become an increasingly fashionable destination, even for middle-class Russians.

— nicola slawson, The Christian Science Monitor, "Post-poisoning, Russian expats feel London heat," 28 Mar. 2018
The Uighur diaspora is thought to number 1m-1.6m, the vast majority of them in Central Asia, according to the World Uyghur Congress, an activist group.

— The Economist, "China is trying to prevent the formation of a vocal Uighur diaspora," 28 Mar. 2018
So the salute has become a way for brothers and sisters throughout the diaspora to connect to one another in a way that has never really happened before.

— kashmira gander, Newsweek, "Is the Black Panther 'Wakanda Salute' Becoming a Symbol of Black Pride?," 13 Mar. 2018
In the 2000s, trendsetting Afrofuturist rappers like Outkast and Missy Eliott were doing groundbreaking work, but exploring their relationship to the continent or diaspora wasn’t at the forefront of their innovations.

— taylor hosking, The Atlantic, "How a Black Panther Music Video Taps Into an Old Trend," 1 Mar. 2018
View contemporary artwork from Asian and other diaspora artists at Centre A gallery in Chinatown.

— kai oliver-kurtin, USA TODAY, "Eight ways to experience Asia in Vancouver," 15 Feb. 2018
Is there a cookbook that really speaks to how the African diaspora impacted the whole world through food?

— aliza abarbanel, Bon Appetit, "J. J. Johnson on Knocking Down Barriers and Bringing People Together with Oxtails," 8 Feb. 2018
Kente cloth’s pan-africanist origins are expressed throughout the African diaspora in numerous ways.

— amira rasool, Teen Vogue, "Why Black Lawmakers Wore Kente Cloth to Protest Trump’s “Sh*thole” Comments at the State of the Union," 31 Jan. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'diaspora.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

The Beginnings of the Word diaspora

Until recently diaspora was thought to be a fairly new word in English to describe a very old thing (its first, and principal, meaning relates to the settling of the Jewish people outside of Palestine after the Babylonian exile thousands of years ago). However, recent research has found that the word is quite a bit older than previously thought. It can be found as far back as 1594, in a translation of Lambert Daneau’s A Fruitfull Commentarie vpon the Twelue Small Prophets: “This scattering abrode of the Iewes, as it were an heauenly sowing, fell out after their returne from the captiuitie of Babylon … they are called Diaspora, that is, a scattering or sowing abrode.” Diaspora is descended from the Greek word diaspeirein, meaning “to scatter, spread about.”