émigré

[em-i-grey, ey-mee-grey]

noun

plural

émigrés 

1. an emigrant, especially a person who flees from their native land because of political conditions.

2. a person who fled from France because of opposition to or fear of the revolution that began in 1789.

émigré

/ ˈɛmɪˌɡreɪ, emiɡre /

noun

1. an emigrant, esp one forced to leave his native country for political reasons

Word History and Origins

Origin of émigré¹

First recorded in 1785–95; from French: noun use of past participle of émigrer, from Latin ēmīgrāre to emigrate

Word History and Origins

Origin of émigré¹

C18: from French, from émigrer to _emigrate

Example Sentences

In 1957, actress Isabella Giori hopes to land a career-making role in a Hitchcock film; when her circumstances change and she winds up secluded in a tiny cottage in Carmel-on-the-Sea, a blacklisted emigre screenwriter named Léon Chazan saves her.

From Los Angeles Times

The Central Intelligence Agency’s Manhattan-based “book club” office was run by an emigre from Romania named George Midden, who managed to send 10 million books behind the Iron Curtain.

From Los Angeles Times

Marsak’s affection for the past extends to Arnold Hylen, a solitary, mild-mannered Swedish émigré, whose book of mid-20th century photos and an essay about old Los Angeles, “Los Angeles Before the Freeways 1850-1950: Images of an Era,” was recently reissued by Angel City Press in a new edition curated and expanded by Marsak.

From Los Angeles Times

Like Schoenberg before him, the Russian émigré composer tried but failed to get a lucrative contract scoring a Hollywood film.

From Los Angeles Times

And, lately, he’d been having clandestine trysts with a Russian emigre with KGB ties, Svetlana Ogorodnikova, in cars and cheap hotels around Los Angeles.

From Los Angeles Times

When To Use

What does émigré mean?

An émigré is an emigrant, especially one who has fled their home country due to oppressive political conditions.An emigrant is any person who has emigrated or is emigrating—permanently leaving home in one country or region to settle in another.While emigrants can emigrate for a number of reasons, the word émigré typically implies that someone has fled political oppression or political conditions that they strongly disagree with.The word émigré is sometimes used in a more specific way to refer to a person who fled from France before, during, or after the French Revolution, which began in 1789. Such émigrés were often aristocrats who feared that they would be targeted by violence during the revolution or otherwise opposed it.The related word immigrant refers to someone who moves to a place, as opposed to away from it. Of course, émigrés are also immigrants since they have to settle somewhere after they leave.The word is sometimes seen without the accent marks (as emigre).Example: Thousands of émigrés fled Germany during the rise of Hitler in the 1930s.