What does "estrangement" mean?

The act of estranging; the act of alienating; alienation.

What is a synonym for "estrangement"?

Common synonyms include: alienation, alienation, apostasy, breach, break, cleavage.

Pronounced //ɪsˈtɹeɪnd͡ʒmənt//.

//ɪsˈtɹeɪnd͡ʒmənt// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The act of estranging; the act of alienating; alienation. countable, uncountable
"The impeachment crisis is also a symptom of a country caught in a massive political estrangement that is tearing apart any sense of common patriotic purpose. It has exposed a political culture in which the facts – in this case, of the President’s actions – are no longer sacrosanct and that has been laced with a fog of misinformation by his allies."
2
the feeling of being alienated from other people wordnet
3
The state of being alien; foreign, non-native. countable, uncountable
4
separation resulting from hostility wordnet

"Tom, stranded alone at the beginning of sentences, couldn't get used to the growing estrangement of Mary."

Old French estrangement. By surface analysis, estrange + -ment (“act, state”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.