stranger
A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.
Adjective
- comparative form of strange: more strange
- Truth is stranger than fiction.
Origin
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Derived
Noun
- 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.
- 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...
- An outsider or foreigner.
- I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions. - 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares...
- Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here. - 1726, George Granville, Written in a Garden in the North:
- I like to be a stranger myself—it was my destiny; but I wish to be the only stranger. - 1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic:
- One not admitted to communion or fellowship.
- A newcomer.
- […] 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...
- The first thing that strikes the stranger is the sharpness of the curves on the metre gauge; it is not unusual for a long train to be travelling in three directions at once, and the engine is frequently in full view of...
- Wearing number 66 for his club side, Alexander-Arnold is no stranger to an unusual shirt number. Regardless, the sight of the right-back wearing 10 in central midfield for England was guaranteed to catch the eye. - 2023...
- Used ironically to refer to a person who the speaker knows.
- Hello, stranger!
- One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.
- To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger. - 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias...
- 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.
- [Judge Beverly] Davis then granted the adoption to the new wife of the boy's father; this action designated the boy's natural mother a "legal stranger," terminating all rights the mother had to visit her child. - 1980...
- 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.
- A moth, Lacanobia blenna
Origin
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”). Cognate with French étranger (“foreigner, stranger”) and Spanish extranjero (“foreigner”). Displaced native Old English fremde (literally “strange or unfamiliar person”).
Forms
Synonyms
Antonyms
acquaintance friend compatriot countryman fellow citizen fellow countryman national resident
Hyponyms
alien foreigner foreign national non-national nonnational non-resident nonresident outsider outcast
Related
Derived
be no stranger to cyberstranger don't be a stranger familiar stranger nonstranger perfect stranger stranger crime stranger danger strangerdom strangeress strangerhood stranger in the night strangerlike strangerly strangership strangerwise
Verb
- To estrange; to alienate.
- Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath - c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...