Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.
  • noun A foreigner, newcomer, or outsider.
  • noun One who is unaccustomed to or unacquainted with something specified; a novice.
  • noun Law One that is neither privy nor party to a title, act, or contract.
  • noun Archaic A visitor or guest.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name in Victoria and Tasmania for a labroid fish, Odax richardsoni. Also called rock-whiting.
  • To estrange; alienate.
  • noun One who comes from another country or region; a foreigner.
  • noun A person with whom one is not acquainted; one whose name and character are unknown.
  • noun One who is ignorant (of) or unacquainted (with): with to.
  • noun One not belonging to the house; a guest; a visitor.
  • noun In law, one not privy or party to an act.
  • noun Some thing popularly supposed or humorously said to betoken the approach of a stranger or guest, as guttering in a candle or a teastalk in a cup of tea.
  • noun Specifically, in entomology, the noctuid moth Hadena peregrina: an English collectors' name.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To estrange; to alienate.
  • noun One who is strange, foreign, or unknown.
  • noun One who comes from a foreign land; a foreigner.
  • noun One whose home is at a distance from the place where he is, but in the same country.
  • noun One who is unknown or unacquainted; ; hence, one not admitted to communication, fellowship, or acquaintance.
  • noun One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.
  • noun (Law) One not privy or party an act, contract, or title; a mere intruder or intermeddler; one who interferes without right.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective comparative form of strange: more strange
  • noun A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.
  • noun An outsider or foreigner
  • noun A newcomer.
  • noun humorous One who has not been seen for a long time.
  • verb obsolete, transitive To estrange; to alienate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an individual that one is not acquainted with
  • noun anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French estrangier, from estrange, strange; see strange.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French estrangier ("foreign, alien"), from Latin extraneus ("foreign, external") (whence also English estrange), from extra ("outside of").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word stranger.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.