Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - diaspora

 noun  Etymology: Greek, dispersion, from diaspeirein to scatter, from dia- + speirein to sow  Date: 1881  1. capitalized  a. the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile  b. the area outside Palestine settled by Jews  c. the Jews living outside Palestine or modern Israel  2.  a. the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland the black ~ to northern cities  b. people settled far from their ancestral homelands African ~  c. the place where these people live  • diasporic adjective