alien
pronunciation
How to pronounce alien in British English:
UK [ˈeɪliən]
How to pronounce alien in American English:
US [ˈeɪliən]
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- Noun:
- a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe allegiance to your country
- anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found
- a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere
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- Verb:
- transfer property or ownership
- arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness
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- Adjective:
- not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of something
- being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the world
Word Origin
- alien
- alien: [14] The essential notion contained in alien is of ‘otherness’. Its ultimate source is Latin alius ‘other’ (which is related to English else). From this was formed a Latin adjective aliēnus ‘belonging to another person or place’, which passed into English via Old French alien. In Middle English an alternative version alient arose (in the same way as ancient, pageant, and tyrant came from earlier ancien, pagin, and tyran), but this died out during the 17th century.The verb alienate ‘estrange’ or ‘transfer to another’s ownership’ entered the language in the mid 16th century, eventually replacing an earlier verb alien (source of alienable and inalienable).=> alibi, else
- alien (adj.)
- mid-14c., "strange, foreign," from Old French alien "alien, strange, foreign; an alien, stranger, foreigner," from Latin alienus "of or belonging to another, foreign, alien, strange," also, as a noun, "a stranger, foreigner," adjectival form of alius "(an)other" (see alias (adv.)). Meaning "not of the Earth" first recorded 1920. An alien priory (c. 1500) is one owing obedience to a mother abbey in a foreign country.
- alien (n.)
- "foreigner, citizen of a foreign land," from alien (adj.). In the science fiction sense, from 1953.
Synonym
Example
- 1. So is there going to be an alien ambassador ?
- 2. Maybe alien technology isn 't so foreign after all .
- 3. I washed some dishes and took some alien children to the loo .
- 4. These three alien heads all represent 3d images of a developing embryonic mouse head .
- 5. He 'd seem to the kids a complete alien .