What does repatriate mean?
Word: Repatriate
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Repatriate means to return people to their home country, often with official help.
How do you spell repatriate?
Syllables: re - pa - tri - ate
Tricky part: Quick speech swallows the vowel after the tr, so pupils write the word with three beats or put an e there. It has four beats, and that vowel is an i.
Watch out for: repatrate, repatreate
Memory tip: Think of the end as I ate: a traveller back home at last says, I ate my mother's cooking. Those letters follow the tr.
Repatriate in a sentence
Example 1: The embassy helped to repatriate Indian sailors after their ship was laid up in Oman.
Example 2: After the strike ended, the tour company repatriated every one of its guests.
Example 3: The company repatriates part of its overseas profit to its head office in Pune each year.
Fun Fact
In 1990 Air India flew home about 170,000 Indians stranded in the Gulf. It remains one of the largest repatriations ever carried out by air, and it entered Guinness World Records.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to complete the word:
r_p_triate
a) i, a
b) e, a
c) e, e
d) a, a
Show answer
b) e, a. Re starts it, as in return, and the next vowel is the one in pat.
Word Cookie
One word in this sentence is misspelt. Find it:
When the swimming meet in Bangkok was called off, the organisers worked day and night to repattriate all the young swimmers and their coaches by the weekend.
a) coaches
b) swimmers
c) organisers
d) repattriate
Show answer
d) repattriate. One t is all it needs before the r.
Mingle-Mangle
Rearrange the jumbled letters in the sentence to form the right word:
Next week a chartered flight will pteaetrrai the young athletes stuck in Manila after the contest.
a) renovate
b) repatriate
c) regenerate
d) repudiate
Show answer
b) repatriate. Count the a's and the t's: the jumble has two of each, the other options one.
Spell-o-Spell
Three of these words are spelt correctly and one is misspelt. Choose the meaning of the misspelt word:
1. emigrant 2. pasport 3. repatriate 4. citizen
a) to return someone to the homeland
b) a person who legally belongs to a country
c) an official document for travelling abroad
d) a person who leaves to live in another land
Show answer
c) an official document for travelling abroad. Passport joins pass and port, so it keeps both s's.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which headline fits a story about people being repatriated?
a) Chennai school wins national quiz cup
b) New metro line opens across Chennai
c) Rain delays the Chennai flower show
d) Stranded tourists flown home to Chennai
Show answer
d) Stranded tourists flown home to Chennai
2. After a firm repatriates its overseas profit, the money is ____.
a) back in the firm's home country
b) lent to a rival company overseas
c) held in a bank in a foreign land
d) spent on a new office abroad
Show answer
a) back in the firm's home country
