Repatriate

//ɹiːˈpeɪ.tɹi.eɪt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who has returned to their country of origin or whose original citizenship has been restored.
  2. 2
    a person who has returned to the country of origin or whose citizenship has been restored wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To restore (a person) to their own country. transitive

    "Early in 1948, a rumor spread through camp that the Japanese prisoners of war were finally going to be allowed to go home, that a ship would be sent to repatriate us in the spring."

  2. 2
    admit back into the country wordnet
  3. 3
    To return or restore (artworks, museum exhibits, etc.) to their country of origin. transitive

    "Greece repatriated an Athenian frieze from France, arranging for it to be sent back to Athens."

  4. 4
    send someone back to their homeland against their will, as of refugees wordnet
  5. 5
    To convert a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
bring backextraditegive backput backreclaimrecondition

Example

More examples

"The Indonesian government announced that it plans to repatriate 68 of its citizens who are crew members aboard the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Yokohama, at the center of Japan’s coronavirus outbreak."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin repatriare, from re- + patria (“homeland”). Cognate to repair (“to return”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.