Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate.
- v. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Foreign; strange.
- Reserved; haughty.
- n. A stranger; a foreigner.
- To alienate; divert from its original use or possessor; apply to a purpose foreign to its original, proposed, or customary one.
- To alienate the affections of; turn from kindness to indifference or enmity; turn from intimate association to strangeness, indifference, or hostility.
- To keep at a distance; withdraw; withhold: generally used reflexively.
- To cause to appear strange or foreign.
Wiktionary
- v. To cause to feel less close or friendly; alienate. To cease contact with (particularly of a family member or spouse, especially in form term).
- v. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations.
- n. foreign; oversea
- n. foreign; oversea
- adj. strange; odd; bizarre
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To withdraw; to withhold; hence, reflexively, to keep at a distance; to cease to be familiar and friendly with.
- v. To divert from its original use or purpose, or from its former possessor; to alienate.
- v. To alienate the affections or confidence of; to turn from attachment to enmity or indifference.
WordNet 3.0
- v. arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness
- v. remove from customary environment or associations
Etymologies
- Middle English estraungen, from Old French estrangier, from Latin extrāneāre, to treat as a stranger, disown, from extrāneus, foreign; see strange.
Examples
“He does not want to "estrange" the son he sees only several times a year.”
The Washington Post: Carolyn Hax: Don't push husband to demand more from son
“And home ends up being an old mansion with her hypochondriac of a mother and estrange half-sister.”
“I'm taking her hat off, in the rain, her hair spills like spinach all the way down to her backpack, the top pocket where the bowl and the cinnamon estrange themselves from the coffee.”
“And this very transformation saves him from speaking irresponsible words which estrange without reconciling and from making hasty judgments which are blind to the necessity of social progress.”
“Some within the US war machine argue that a nastier insurgency is no bad thing, as it would estrange the Taliban more from the population they claim to govern.”
The Guardian: The Taliban: Opening offices and options | Editorial
“Never has a football club chosen to estrange itself so thoroughly from the opinion of the rest of the nation.”
The Guardian: Kenny Dalglish's touch deserts him in case of misplaced solidarity | Richard Williams
“As Jon Stewart's commentary on Dave Silverman's comments about the World Trade Center memorial demonstrated, unsophisticated criticisms of religion estrange reasonable people -- both fellow atheists, and potential religious allies.”
The Huffington Post: Chris Stedman: The Problem With 'Atheist Activism'
“The letter also demands that an immediate investigation be launched into the activities of the Christian ministries operating on the Air Force Academy campus, due to reports from the parents of Academy cadets and graduates that at least one of these ministries is using cult-like tactics to recruit cadets and estrange them from their families.”
“First off, standing up for equality does not ipso facto estrange us from America.”
“Still estrange from her dad, he feels for him as he is going blind.”
Oxygen-Carol Wiley Cassella « The Merry Genre Go Round Reviews
Lists
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