Foreign

//ˈfɒɹɪn// adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A foreign person; A foreigner: a person from another country. informal

    "The messaging instructions come in two sets: one for domestics, another for the foreigns."

  2. 2
    A foreign person; An outsider: a person from another place or group. obsolete
  3. 3
    A foreign person; A non-guildmember. obsolete
  4. 4
    A foreign vehicle; A foreign ship. obsolete
  5. 5
    A foreign vehicle; A foreign whip, a car produced abroad. slang

    "In the foreign switching lanes and we riding […] A island I wanna live somewhere silent I'm shining I'm bout to flood my neck with diamonds Yeah I've been spitting facts these niggas lying I'm driving stolens, foreigns, yeah I'm riding"

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  1. 6
    An outhouse; an outdoor toilet. obsolete

    "Ful foule ys þat forreyne Þat ys comoun for al certeyne."

  2. 7
    A foreign area; An area of a community that lies outside the legal town or parish limits. dialectal
  3. 8
    A foreign area; An area of a monastery outside its legal limits or serving as an outer court. obsolete, plural-normally
  4. 9
    Short for various phrases, including foreign language, foreign parts, and foreign service. abbreviation, alt-of
Adjective
  1. 1
    Located outside a country or place, especially one's own.

    "foreign markets; foreign soil"

  2. 2
    Originating from, characteristic of, belonging to, or being a citizen of a country or place other than the one under discussion.

    "foreign car; foreign word; foreign citizen; foreign trade"

  3. 3
    Relating to a different nation.

    "foreign policy; foreign navies"

  4. 4
    Not characteristic of or naturally taken in by an organism or system.

    "foreign body; foreign substance; foreign gene; foreign species"

  5. 5
    Alien; strange; uncharacteristic.

    "It was completely foreign to their way of thinking."

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  1. 6
    Held at a distance; excluded; exiled. obsolete

    "Kept him a foreign man still; which so grieved him, / That he ran mad and died."

  2. 7
    From a different legal jurisdiction (state, province), even if within the same country. Canada, US
  3. 8
    Belonging to a different organization, company etc.

    "My bank charges me $2.50 every time I use a foreign ATM."

  4. 9
    Outside, outdoors, outdoor. obsolete
Adjective
  1. 1
    relating to or originating in or characteristic of another place or part of the world wordnet
  2. 2
    of concern to or concerning the affairs of other nations (other than your own) wordnet
  3. 3
    not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of something wordnet
  4. 4
    not belonging to that in which it is contained; introduced from an outside source wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
extraneousoverseasalienexoticextrinsicimported

Example

More examples

"I find foreign languages very interesting."

Etymology

From Middle English foreyn, forein, from Old French forain, from Vulgar Latin *forānus (“outsider, outlander”), from Latin forās (“outside, outdoors”) or forīs (“outside, outdoors”). Displaced native Old English elþēodiġ (“foreign”) and now-dialectal English fremd, from Old English fremde (“strange, foreign”). The silent -g- added perhaps by analogy with reign (compare also sovereign which was similarly altered).

Related phrases

Foreign Officechamber foreigndoctrine of foreign equivalentsforeign accent syndromeforeign affairsforeign agentforeign aidforeign bodyforeign correspondentforeign countryforeign currencyforeign debt

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