To save this word, you'll need to log in.
ex·pa·tri·ate | \ ek-ˈspā-trē-ˌāt 
\
\expatriated; expatriating
Definition of expatriate
(Entry 1 of 3)
2 : to withdraw (oneself) from residence in or allegiance to one's native country
: to leave one's native country to live elsewhere also : to renounce allegiance to one's native country
expatriate
adjectiveex·pa·tri·ate | \ ek-ˈspā-trē-ət , -trē-ˌāt\
, -trē-ˌāt\Definition of expatriate (Entry 2 of 3)
: living in a foreign land
expatriate
nounex·pa·tri·ate | \ ek-ˈspā-trē-ˌāt , -ət\
, -ət\Definition of expatriate (Entry 3 of 3)
: a person who lives in a foreign country
Hemingway himself in The Sun Also Rises, 1926, had given the picture of the dislocated life of young English and American expatriates in the bars of Paris, the "lost generation," as Gertrude Stein defined them.— Robert Penn Warren
Keep scrolling for more
Examples of expatriate in a Sentence
Verb
members of the deposed dictator's once-feared political party were expatriated as well
Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Both sectors were intensive and extensive, monoculture producers of cash commodities for export, with the profits expatriated to outside owners.
—
Wade Graham, Smithsonian, "Why Molokai, With All Its Wonders, Is the Least Developed of Hawai’i’s Islands," 31 Aug. 2019 In the 2000s, anti-Chinese sentiment resulted in riots in the Solomon Islands, PNG and Tonga, where a fatal unrest prompted Beijing to send a charter plane to expatriate around 200 Chinese nationals.
—
Julia Hollingsworth, CNN, "Why China is challenging Australia for influence over the Pacific Islands," 22 July 2019 When Mary Richards was a child, Van Lew expatriated her to Liberia, reflecting a disturbing belief shared by pro-slavery and anti-slavery whites that free blacks had no place in this country.
—
Lois Leveen, Time, "She Was Born Into Slavery, Was a Spy and Is Celebrated as a Hero—But We're Missing the Point of the 'Mary Bowser' Story," 19 June 2019 Plus, several Manhattan chefs have expatriated to the town, so, yum.
—
Devin Alessio, ELLE Decor, "Take A Weekend Getaway In Hudson, New York," 16 Sep. 2016 The obstacles include the precedent that the Constitution does not allow the government to expatriate Americans against their will, through a landmark 1967 case, Afroyim v. Rusk.
—
Charlie Savage, New York Times, "Trump Calls for Revoking Flag Burners’ Citizenship. Court Rulings Forbid It.," 29 Nov. 2016 Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective Because the project is so crucial to Chevron’s future, the company has assembled a team of expatriate stalwarts to push it over the line.
—
Stanley Reed, New York Times, "A Windswept Plain, a Sea of Oil and a Mountain of Money," 30 Aug. 2019 At a board meeting for the expatriate arts club, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen criticized its rules forbidding women from serving as society librarian and from having votes on the board.
—
Andrew Katzenstein, Harper's magazine, "The Radical Conservative," 16 Sep. 2019 The couple joined a community of expatriate revolutionaries in Algeria, including Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver.
—
oregonlive, "How Coos Bay’s ‘All-American girl’ became a daring skyjacker, then disappeared into 1970s underground," 16 Sep. 2019 Multinational companies, expatriate workers and wealthy individuals looking to stash their assets somewhere safer than Hong Kong will flee for Asia’s next best thing, the thinking goes among some observers.
—
Los Angeles Times, "Singapore prefers its Speakers’ Corner to the Hong Kong protests, thank you," 14 Aug. 2019 He was born on March 29, 1928, in Brussels to an expatriate American father, Willard Hudson Botsford, and an Italian mother, Carolina Elena Rangoni-Machiavelli-Publicola-Santacroce.
—
Bill Morris, New York Times, "Keith Botsford, Man of Letters and Saul Bellow Associate, Dies at 90," 14 June 2019 He was born on March 29, 1928, in Brussels to an expatriate American father, Willard Hudson Botsford, and an Italian mother, Carolina Elena Rangoni-Machiavelli-Publicola-Santacroce.
—
Bill Morris, BostonGlobe.com, "Keith Botsford, man of letters and Saul Bellow associate, dies at 90," 18 June 2019 Sow was one of the first to settle in Greater Cincinnati, which is now considered the largest expatriate Mauritanian community in the United States.
—
Mark Curnutte, Cincinnati.com, "'I do everything all Americans do.' Home but for how long? ICE releases Mauritanian man after 11 months," 16 July 2019 For the first time in four years, Singapore is not the best destination for expatriate workers, according to HSBC’s Expat 2019 Global Report released today.
—
Adam Rasmi, Quartz, "The top ten countries for expats," 3 July 2019 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The store, which is popular with tourists and resident expatriates as well as locals, looks much like any other supermarket at first glance.
—
NBC News, "Bali fights back as tons of floating plastic threaten to spoil once-pristine paradise," 25 Aug. 2019 Apart from organizing pro-government rallies in European cities with the help of a new lobby organization called the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD), Turkey has taken other firm steps to cultivate ties with its expatriates.
—
Ayca Arkilic, Washington Post, "How Turkey’s outreach to its diaspora is inflaming tensions with Europe," 26 Mar. 2018 Partly due to its status as a global financial hub, Hong Kong is a major destination for expatriates from across the world.
—
Ben Westcott, CNN, "A military crackdown in Hong Kong would backfire on China's economy," 5 Aug. 2019 Juan Correa Villalonga, chief operating officer of a Venezuelan expatriate group called the Association of Venezuelan Mothers and Women Abroad, told USA TODAY.
—
Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY, "'Vaseline after the burn wound': How Mike Pence plays Trump's opposite with foreign leaders," 14 July 2019 Brazil had won five World Cup soccer championships and produced international road racing and tennis champions, but golf had largely remained a niche sport in the country, reserved for wealthy businessmen and expatriates.
—
Richard Goldstein, New York Times, "Mario Gonzalez, Father of Golf in Brazil, Is Dead at 96," 1 Aug. 2019 Still, scholars and Cuban expatriates will quibble with Hansen’s characterization of the revolution’s radical turn subsequently.
—
Michael J. Bustamante, Washington Post, "Portrait of a young Castro, drawn from his personal archive," 5 July 2019 The second was a love of English culture and literature, after his father started him on thrice weekly English lessons with a British expatriate living in Florence.
—
Colleen Barry, San Diego Union-Tribune, "Famed Italian director Franco Zeffirelli dies at age 96," 15 June 2019 The traditional method, where service members or expatriates request ballots by mail and submit absentee votes, isn’t tamper-proof and relies on sometimes-spotty postal services.
—
Caitlin Ostroff, WSJ, "Blockchain at the Ballot Box? Maybe Someday," 1 Aug. 2018
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'expatriate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Keep scrolling for more
Keep scrolling for more
More Definitions for expatriate
expatriate
nounEnglish Language Learners Definition of expatriate
: a person who lives in a foreign country
See the full definition for expatriate in the English Language Learners Dictionary
expatriate
verbex·pa·tri·ate | \ ek-ˈspā-trē-ˌāt \
\expatriated; expatriating
Legal Definition of expatriate
: to voluntarily withdraw (oneself) from allegiance to one's native country
: to renounce allegiance to one's country and abandon one's nationality voluntarily
Other Words from expatriate
expatriate \ -trē-ət \ noun
expatriation \ ek-ˌspā-trē-ˈā-shən \ noun
\ nounKeep scrolling for more
Comments on expatriate
What made you want to look up expatriate? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
Test Your Vocabulary
Confusing Words—A Quiz
- I invented a brand new toaster robot and
______it "Sir Toasts-a-Lot."
Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?
TAKE THE QUIZ
Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.
TAKE THE QUIZLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridgedWords at Play
Ask the Editors
Word Games
- Confusing Words—A Quiz
Test your knowledge of these commonly confused words!
Take the quiz - Here Be Dragons: A Creature Identification Quiz Take the quiz
- Spell It
Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?
Take the quiz - Bee Cubed
Listen to the words and spell through all three levels.
Play the game
Share expatriate
Resources for expatriate