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diaspora

noun

di·as·po·radī-ˈa-sp(ə-)rə How to pronounce diaspora (audio)

dē-

plural diasporas

Synonyms ofdiaspora next

oftenDiaspora plural DiasporasJudaism

:the Jews living outside Israel

—usually used withthe

… contributions made bythe Diaspora to Israel's well-being …—

Idan Roll

:the settling of scattered communities of Jews outside ancientPalestine after theBabylonian exile

Sephardi Jews began theirdiaspora into lands including North Africa and Anatolia in the late 15th century …—

Brendan Lavell

:the area outside ancient Palestine settled by Jews

The history of the Jewish people has been precisely a journey … out of ancient Babylon to the promised land, into theDiaspora, and then a sojourning in nearly all the lands of the world's nations …—

Sharon L. Coggan

or less commonlyDiaspora

:people settled far from their ancestral homelands

—often used withthe

members of the Africandiaspora

:the places where people settled and established communities far from their ancestral homelands

The festival features 12 films from across the Caribbean and itsdiasporas: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Martinique, the UK, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and the Bahamas …—

Daily News (New York)

:the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland

the Blackdiaspora from the rural South to northern cities

:the fact or condition of being a member of a diaspora

But centuries of migration for many mean many livein diaspora, and not always—Jew or not—experiencingdiaspora as exile.—

Melanie Kaye

Written from her point of view as an Arabin diaspora, [Reem] Assil takes readers on a journey through her Palestinian and Syrian roots, showing how her heritage has inspired her recipes …—

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

diasporic

ˌdī-ə-ˈspȯr-ik How to pronounce diaspora (audio)

adjective

Unlike in India where festivities are public and widespread,diasporic celebrations are more regulated to specific spaces and times.—

Rina Arya

Did you know?

The Beginnings of the WordDiaspora

Until recentlydiaspora was thought to be a fairly new word in English to describe a very old thing (its first, and principal, meaning relates to the settling of the Jewish people outside of Palestine after the Babylonian exile thousands of years ago). However, recent research has found that the word is quite a bit older than previously thought.It can be found as far back as 1594, in a translation of Lambert Daneau’s A Fruitfull Commentarie vpon the Twelue Small Prophets: “This scattering abrode of the Iewes, as it were an heauenly sowing, fell out after their returne from the captiuitie of Babylon … they are called Diaspora, that is, a scattering or sowing abrode.”Diaspora is descended from the Greek worddiaspeirein, meaning “to scatter, spread about.”

Examples ofdiaspora in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage.Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.Send us feedback.

Seeing the whole project laid out and discovering just how much African decolonization movements in the ’60s and beyond brought to the fore African filmmakers and filmmakers around thediaspora who were really stepping behind the camera for the first time and telling their stories.—

Zac Ntim,Deadline, 11 Feb. 2026Critics have characterized Bad Bunny's performance as a tribute to his home island of Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, and its musical influence in New York, where a large portion of thediaspora lives.—

Anna Kaufman,USA Today, 11 Feb. 2026After graduating from college in 2009, Wong spent a month living with her grandparents, who were part of the Chinesediaspora in New Zealand.—

Grace Hwang Lynch,Mercury News, 11 Feb. 2026Black restaurant owners in Central Texas celebrate the foodways of Texas and the Africandiaspora with diverse offerings ranging from Cajun classics to barbecue.—

Ana Gutierrez,Austin American Statesman, 10 Feb. 2026See All Example Sentences fordiaspora