emigration

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ēmigrātiō (“removal from a place”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which Etymonline, Barnhart, Merriam-Webster and the Shorter Oxford call Late Latin;^{[3][4][5][7][8]} the OED, in its 2023 revision, finds it in classical Latin, in a 2nd-century legal text, for moving out of a house, and in Augustine for the soul's departure at death.^[2] It is a noun of action from ēmigrātus, past participle of ēmigrō (“to move away, depart from a place”),^[3][2][6] from ex- (“out”) in its form ē- and migrō (“to move”),^[3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *mei- (“to change, go, move”).^[3] The English noun is older than the verb emigrate, which Etymonline dates to 1763 and takes as a back-formation from it or a borrowing of the Latin participle.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of moving from one place, situation or set of circumstances to another: 1646, in J. Hall's Balme of Gilead.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1640s, Barnhart to 1650.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

At first the word meant any removal from one place or state to another, as in Jeremy Taylor's "emigrations of his soul after God";^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as "change of habitation; removal from one place to another", quoting Hale.^[9] From before 1676, in Hale, it was used of leaving one's own country to settle in another,^[2] and this became the main sense, the older one being now rare.^[7][2] The sense of the emigrants themselves, considered as a group, is dated by the Shorter Oxford to the early 19th century and is current in Collins and Merriam-Webster,^[7][10][5] although the OED has only a single record of it, from 1865, and marks it obsolete.^[2] In physiology, from 1860, it is the movement of cells from their usual place into another part of the body.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1646 – the action of moving from one place or set of circumstances to another.^[2]
• before 1676 – leaving one's country to settle permanently in another.^[2]
• 1860 – in physiology, the movement of cells into another part of the body.^[2]
• 1865 – the emigrants considered as a body.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of leaving one's own country or region to settle in another; an instance of this: The famine caused a wave of emigration to the New World.^[5][10][2]
2. The emigrants from a place, considered as a group.^[10][5][7]
3. In physiology, the passage of cells, especially white blood cells, from their usual place into other tissue; diapedesis.^[5][2]
4. (rare) Any removal from one place or condition to another.^[7][2][9]

Word family

• emigrational
• nonemigration

Related words

• migrate
• migratory
• emigrate
• emigre
• emigrant
• immigration
• migration

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins