stranger
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle English straunger, from Old French estrangier (“foreign, alien”), from estrange, from Latin extraneus (“foreign, external”) (whence also English estrange), from extra (“outside of”). Displaced native Old English fremde. Cognate with French étranger (“foreigner, stranger”) and Spanish extranjero (“foreigner”).
PronunciationEdit
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈstɹeɪndʒɚ/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈstɹeɪndʒə/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪndʒə(ɹ)
AdjectiveEdit
stranger
- comparative form of strange: more strange
- Truth is stranger than fiction.
Related termsEdit
- See strange
NounEdit
stranger (plural strangers)
- A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.
- That gentleman is a stranger to me. Children are taught not to talk to strangers.
- 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:
- In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. […] Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.
- An outsider or foreigner.
- 1613, William Shakespeare; [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iv]:
- I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions.
- 1726, George Granville, Written in a Garden in the North
- Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.
- 1961, Robert A. Heinlein: “Stranger in a Strange Land”
- One not admitted to communion or fellowship.
- A newcomer.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 7, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.
- (humorous) One who has not been seen for a long time.
- Hello, stranger!
- (obsolete) One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book 5”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:
- To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger.
- (law) One not privy or party to an act, contract, or title; a mere intruder or intermeddler; one who interferes without right.
- Actual possession of land gives a good title against a stranger having no title.
- (obsolete) A superstitious premonition of the coming of a visitor by a bit of stalk in a cup of tea, the guttering of a candle, etc.
HyponymsEdit
- (outsider, foreigner): alien, foreigner, foreign national, non-national/nonnational, non-resident/nonresident, outsider; see also Thesaurus:foreigner or Thesaurus:outcast
SynonymsEdit
- (person whom one does not know):
- (newcomer): newbie, newcomer; see also Thesaurus:newcomer or Thesaurus:beginner
AntonymsEdit
- (person whom one does not know): acquaintance, friend
- (outsider, foreigner): compatriot, countryman, fellow citizen, fellow countryman, national, resident
- (newcomer):
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
person whom one does not know
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outsider or foreigner — See also translations at foreigner
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newcomer
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one who has not been seen for a long time
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See alsoEdit
VerbEdit
stranger (third-person singular simple present strangers, present participle strangering, simple past and past participle strangered)
- (obsolete, transitive) To estrange; to alienate.
- c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene i]:
- Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath