Word of the Day

: August 23, 2021

emigrate

verb EM-uh-grayt

What It Means

Emigrate means "to leave a country or region in order to live somewhere else."

// The author's family emigrated from Hungary.

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emigrate in Context

"Originally from Jamaica, Martin emigrated to the UK in 2002 and enrolled in an IT course at a college in East London." — The Caribbean Today, July 2021

Did You Know?

Migrate, emigrate, and immigrate are all about being on the move. All those terms come from the Latin word migrare, which means "to move from one place to another." Emigrate and immigrate sound alike, and it is true that both involve leaving one location and entering another. The subtle difference between them lies in point of view: emigrate stresses leaving the original place, while immigrate focuses on entering the new one. You won't have trouble keeping them straight if you remember that the prefix e- means "away," as in eject, and the prefix im- or in- means "into," as in inject.