expatriate

1.

/ɛksˈpeɪtrieɪt/

a person who is voluntarily absent from home or country

2.

/ɛkˈspeɪtriˌeɪt/

expel from a country

Other forms: expatriates; expatriated; expatriating

An expatriate is someone who lives in another country by choice. If you leave your split-level ranch in Ohio and move to a writers' commune in Paris for good, you've become an expatriate.

Expatriate can also be a verb, so that American in Paris has expatriated. There was a scene of expatriates, or expats, living in Paris in the roaring '20s that included writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. The word used to mean to get kicked out of your native country — it's from the French word expatrier which means "banish." The prefix ex means "out of" and the Latin patria "one's native country," but the word took a turn and now refers to people who left without getting shoved out.

Definitions of expatriate (/ɛksˈpeɪtrieɪt/)

1. noun

   a person who is voluntarily absent from home or country
   “American expatriates”

   synonyms: exile, expat

   types:

   refugee

   an exile who flees for safety

   remittance man

   an exile living on money sent from home

   DP, displaced person, stateless person

   a person forced to flee from home or country

   type of:

   absentee

   one that is absent or not in residence