Expatriate vs. emigrant (immigrant): What's the difference?

Hemingway kept his American citizenship. I believe that an expat is generally defined as a person who retains their original citizenship even if permanently living overseas.

An emigrant leaves with no intention of returning or retaining his/her citizenship..

No, they differ in some fundamental ways.

An expatriate (from ex patria) is someone who is away from their home, but not forever.

An emigrant is someone who has left here for good to go somewhere else to resettle.

(By the way, there is emigrant and immigrant, each dependent on the direction of travel. An emigrant is leaving here, an immigrant is arriving here.)

I still consider myself an ex-pat because I never (regrettably) obtained citizenship in a new country, but kept my old one. I do not have any plans to return, though.

An expatriate has money. An immigrant doesn’t.

Nope, @Darth_Algar really nope.

@Darth_Algar Oh man, you have no idea how much I and so many others wish that were true.

I think @zenvelo has it right.

Although, I actually think of expats as a person who is moved to a country by their company. That’s how I use the word anyway. Which is sort of in line with what @Darth_Algar said; however, it’s not true to say all immigrants don’t have money.

That comment was made rather in jest. But I forgot that on here you have to add little marks to indicate such.

@Darth_Algar I almost classified this Q as “social”.

While my comment was jestful, it is not without some anecdotal basis. A guy I use to correspond with who had moved to Thailand because he rather liked the climate and culture there. The guy was pretty well off though, and did not move because of work or opportunity or anything. But he had ample money, so people insisted on referring to him as an expatriate rather than an immigrant, even though he stated that he was settled there for good and had no intentions of ever moving back to his home country.

I guess I need a new classification for my situation. I don’t want to be living in the country I’m in but I can’t move because of the laws here. What is that called? A hostage of some sort?

[Mod says] Moved to Social with OP’s permission.