emigrant

noun em·i·grant \ ˈe-mi-grənt \

Updated on: 14 Mar 2018

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

Simon's script describes Val as an emigrant from Russia, like Tolkin, who is taking a Berlitz class in English to learn how to curse without a Russian accent.

— don maines, Houston Chronicle, "'Ba-dum-bum!' the cue for laugh lines in Nassau Bay comedy," 1 Mar. 2018
But for the most part, these great waves of people were called emigrants, or migrants.

— amanda erickson, Washington Post, "The 1829 dictionary entry that reshaped how Americans think about immigrants," 18 Jan. 2018
The proposal would also terminate the diversity visa lottery, which provides 50,000 visas a year to people from countries that send relatively few emigrants to the United States.

— San Francisco Chronicle, "Immigration actions and proposals," 27 Jan. 2018
Nielsen did concede that Trump had nice things to say about Norway and its prospective emigrants to the United States.

— jonathan chait, Daily Intelligencer, "Trump Homeland Security Secretary Not Sure If Most Norwegians Are White," 16 Jan. 2018
Many of these emigrants came to the United States, with a particularly high number settling in the Washington region.

— Washington Post, "Ethiopian restaurants foster community in Silver Spring," 15 Sep. 2017
But both of them also share humble beginnings -- Jenny from the Block sharing a bedroom with two sisters in the Bronx, and Rodriguez born to Dominican Republic emigrants, born in New York before growing up in Miami.

— megan armstrong, Billboard, "Jennifer Lopez & Alex Rodriguez Detail Their Romance for 'Vanity Fair': 'We Are Very Much Twins'," 31 Oct. 2017
Today, a massive new wave of emigrants is fleeing to Europe from Syria and Iraq.

— National Geographic, "During Last Mass Migration, Europeans Were the Immigrants," 24 Apr. 2016
The elder Cruz is a Cuban emigrant who relocated to the United States in the 1950s.

— matt ford, The Atlantic, "Trump Reverses Course on the Release of JFK Files," 26 Oct. 2017

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”).