VocabauraVOCABAURA

expatriate

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

Someone who lives outside one's own country.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ehkspaytreeayt

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɛksˈpeɪtɹieɪt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. One who lives outside one's own country, especially temporarily for a profession or education.

  2. One who has been banished from one's own country.

  3. A person who is voluntarily absent from home or country

adjective

  1. Living outside of one's own country.

verb

  1. intransitive

    To renounce the rights and liabilities of citizenship where one is born and become a citizen of another country.

  2. Expel from a country

  3. Move away from one's native country and adopt a new residence abroad

  4. transitive

    To banish; to drive or force (a person) from his own country; to make an exile of.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: One who lives outside one's own country, especially temporarily for a profession or education.

Used this way, expatriate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Share your sentence

Write your own example sentence using “expatriate”. We review each one before it appears.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

expatriate communityamerican expatriateexpatriate staffexpatriate personnelexpatriate managerexpatriate populationbritish expatriatelarge expatriate

Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

Ask Vocabaura

Understand the word your way.

What Does It Mean Here?

Words can change meaning depending on context.

Use it yourself

Knowing “expatriate” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.

Know the meaning? Practice using it in a real situation, free, no credits.

Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.