Migrating

How to spell migrating

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce migrating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does migrating mean?

1. verbMoving from one region, country, or habitat to another, often seasonally or for better conditions.
2. verbTransferring data, software, or systems from one platform or environment to another.

Migrating in a sentence

• The swallows are migrating south before the cold weather arrives.

• The team spent the weekend migrating customer records to the new database.

• Thousands of workers were migrating to the cities in search of jobs.

• We are migrating the old website to a faster hosting service.

Where does migrating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb migrare, which literally meant 'to move from one place to another' or 'to change one's dwelling'. Latin built it on a root connected to the idea of shifting and exchanging, the same family that gives us 'mutual' and 'mutable' through the sense of change. English took up 'migrate' in the early 1600s, and the present participle 'migrating' followed naturally as the action form. For a long time the word was used chiefly of people and whole populations relocating, before naturalists made it the standard term for the seasonal travels of birds, fish, and herds. The spelling stays close to the Latin: a single g and a single t, with the silent e of 'migrate' dropped before the -ing ending.

How the word is built

• migr- (from Latin migrare: to move from one place to another)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ing (present participle)