emigrant

noun em·i·grant \ ˈe-mi-grənt \

|Updated on: 14 Aug 2018

Examples: emigrant in a Sentence

Editor's Note: immigrant or emigrant?

Definition of emigrant

1 : one who emigrates

2 : a migrant plant or animal

See emigrant defined for English-language learners

See emigrant defined for kids

Examples of emigrant in a Sentence

Millions of European emigrants came to America in the 19th century.
a city teeming with emigrants from many lands

Recent Examples of emigrant from the Web

My wife, the daughter of Italian emigrants, grew up in Geneva and attended the French-speaking compulsory schools.

— WSJ, "Marketing French as a World Language, or Not," 21 June 2018
The remote posting served to isolate John D. Lee, who bore the brunt of the blame for the Mountain Meadow Massacre in which 120 emigrants on their way to California were killed.

— scott craven, azcentral, "Lees Ferry: Gateway to Grand Canyon rafting and the Colorado River," 9 July 2018
The maps accompanying the reports furnished emigrants with an accurate road map for the journeys that thousands would take west in the 1840s and 1850s.

— johnforristerross, Longreads, "Taming the Great American Desert," 2 July 2018
Negar Djavadi is, with her story of a family of Iranian emigrants to Paris.

— New York Times, "10 New Books We Recommend This Week," 14 June 2018
Even within the hemisphere, the administration has been focused on the crisis in Venezuela, which has unleashed a massive exodus of emigrants that threatens to destabilize the region.

— nora gámez torres, miamiherald, "Trump is willing to negotiate with North Korea — but not Cuba," 14 June 2018
Challah and Kolkata For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Kolkata was home to a thriving Jewish community, many of them emigrants from Baghdad and Aleppo drawn to the capital of the British Raj.

— michael david lukas, New York Times, "From Cairo to Kolkata, Traces of a Vibrant Jewish Past," 8 June 2018
Why are so many Irish emigrants willing to travel, some over 9,000 miles, and incur a huge personal expense just to vote yes?

— chloe mac donnell, Glamour, "For These Women, Traveling Over 9,000 Miles to Vote in Ireland's Abortion Referendum Isn't a Burden—It's a Necessity," 24 May 2018
But what most gringos know as the classic Mexican style came to Mexico with emigrants from Austria, Germany and Switzerland in the 19th century.

— william bostwick, WSJ, "This Summer’s Must-Have Beers for the Poolside Cooler," 16 May 2018

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

immigrant or emigrant?

Both of these words come from the Latin migrare (“to move from one place to another”), and both have definitions in English that hew closely to their etymological roots, but there is a definite difference between how you would use each one. Emigrant is used in reference to the country that has been left (“an emigrant from Canada”), while immigrant is used in reference the country that one is destined for (“an immigrant to Spain”).