Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. From another part of the world; foreign: exotic tropical plants in a greenhouse. See Synonyms at foreign.
- adj. Intriguingly unusual or different; excitingly strange: "If something can be explained simply, in a familiar way, then it is best to avoid more exotic explanations” ( Chet Raymo). See Synonyms at fantastic.
- adj. Of or involving striptease: an exotic dancer.
- n. One that is exotic.
- n. A striptease performer.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of foreign origin or character; introduced from a foreign country; not native, naturalized, or familiarized; extraneous: as, an exotic plant; an exotic term or word.
- n. Anything of foreign origin, as a plant, tree, word, practice, etc., introduced from a foreign country, and not fully acclimated, naturalized, or established in use.
Wiktionary
- adj. Foreign, with the connotation of excitingly foreign.
- adj. Non-native to the ecosystem.
- n. biology An organism that is exotic to an environment.
- n. An exotic dancer; a stripteaser.
- n. physics Any exotic particle.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Introduced from a foreign country; not native; extraneous; foreign.
- n. Anything of foreign origin; something not of native growth, as a plant, a word, a custom.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. strikingly strange or unusual
- adj. being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the world
Etymologies
- From Latin exoticus, from ἐξωτικός (eksotikos, "foreign"), literally "from the outside", from ἐξω- (ekso, "outside"), from ἐξ (eks, "out of"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin exōticus, from Greek exōtikos, from exō, outside; see exo-. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Not to be outdone, the New York City cast took the term exotic getaway to a whole new level with a Morocco trip spanning three episodes.”
10 Things We Learned From The Real Housewives of New York City's Morocco Trilogy
“JOHN LOWRY, LENDER, AMERICAN HOME MORTGAGE: Well, the term exotic mortgage actually came from Alan Greenspan a few years ago when he was talking about all these creative financing ways where people can afford all these exorbitant houses with low payments.”
“The Atlantic offers some additional thoughts on the term exotic finance.”
“A few years back I was what they call an exotic dancer.”
“And that kind of attraction with Ben Affleck that Jennifer Lopez had symbolizes what we call the exotic is erotic.”
“Kareems business started to blossom (if you don't mind the pun) as he expanded his range in crotons, orchids, and developed what he calls his exotic range of fruit trees.”
“No, "exotic" is totally a red flag for Otherisation.”
“The reason Obama is ahead by only a handful of points in a political environment poisonous for Republicans is because of lingering concern over his "exotic" (that's the code word) name and background.”
“Color One of the most important aspects of Madeleine Castaing's decoration was her love of color — rich colors in exotic combinations — and its potential to evoke history and atmosphere.”
“She's convinced six million, slightly daft, wayward, Oprahfied, single women across the globe, that the key to repair and regeneration after a monumentally failed relationship lies in exotic globe trotting and carbo loading.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘exotic’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Romanticism
Words to describe art of the Romantic Era
rebel, rebellious, angst, ambiguous, expression, expressionism, attitude, moody, bruisy, fantasy, dark, brooding and 91 more...
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Beautiful and Ugly
Beautiful, attractive, well-formed
Ugly, unattractive, malformedadorable, alluring, angelic, appealing, appetizing, attractive, beaming, beauteous, beautiful, becoming, beguiling, bewitching and 180 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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14
Allege, conclusive, counterpart, dismal, enthrall, exotic, incredulous, legendary, lurk, menagerie, naive, pander and 3 more...
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14
allege, conclusive, counterpart, dismal, enthrall, exotic, incredulous, legendary, lurk, menagerie, naive, pander and 3 more...
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kahleigh's list
therapeutic, charade, chalice, rendezvous, amarulence, bewitched, transcendence, passe, cul-de-sac, boulevard, bouquet, forlorn and 18 more...
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words to describe everything GOLD
emotions, reactions, senses, how do we feel when we wear gold, generational, memories,
Sensual, illuminated, history, intricate, classic, bright, luxe, sparkly, splashy, metallic, perfection, gilt and 30 more...
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capitalcreative's Words
deviltry, visceral, cassanova, assuage, genesis, hot minute, osmosis, wistful, sublime, loathe, farfetched, newfangled and 283 more...
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Favorites
disparage, partisan, cupidity, hokum, tussle, odious, dastardly, overture, plane, chronic, peering, peer and 328 more...
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The Medley of Me
A jumble of words, sometimes contradictory, that add up to me. I'll probably be adding to this list for some time, because I'm a very complex individual. ;P
male, long-haired, big-eyed, writer, artist, guitarist, songsmith, talespinner, pilot, wannabe barnstormer, gypsy, cuddlesome and 209 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 3027 more... -
The Ex-acting Xray
Out of this world via the "X-express".
exorbitant, exuberant, extant, exultant, expectorate, exhilarate, excommunicate, exacting, extenuate, exculpate, extirpate, expostulate and 110 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for exotic.

chained_bear Seen here. Jun 19, 2009