sb. and a. [ad. L. ēmigrānt-em, pr. pple. of ēmigrā-re: see EMIGRATE.]
A. sb. One who removes from his own land to settle (permanently) in another. Also attrib., as in emigrant-ship.
1754. (title) A Memorial of the Case of the German Emigrants settled in … Pensilvania.
1774. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, I. Introd. 27. In these expeditions the northern emigrants were … attended by their poets.
1817–8. Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 302. I greatly doubt of its being, generally speaking, of any benefit to the emigrants themselves.
1839. Thirlwall, Greece, II. xii. 82. The emigrants were headed by chiefs who claimed descent from Agamemnon.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Wks. (Bohn), II. 100. The noise of embarking emigrants.
attrib. 1855. Times, 9 July, 10/5. Wreck of an Emigrant Ship…. The English ship Lochmaben Castle.
b. spec. One of the French Royalists who fled at the time of the Revolution; = EMIGRÉ.
1792. Gibbon, Misc. Wks. (1814), I. 368. The deplorable state of the French emigrants.
1812. Amyot, Windham’s Life, I. 39. An expedition, composed of Emigrants, proceeded against Quiberon.
1860. L. Harcourt, Diaries G. Rose, I. 162. The Emperor had insisted that the Emigrants should make no attempt to disturb the public tranquillity.
B. adj. That emigrates or leaves his own land for another. Also (of birds), migratory.
1794. Mathias, Purs. Lit. (1798), 195. Emigrant Catholick priests.
1796. E. Darwin, Zoon., I. 233. The same birds are emigrant from some countries and not so from others.
