Stranger
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.
"That gentleman is a stranger to me."
- 2 anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found wordnet
- 3 An outsider or foreigner.
"I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions."
- 4 an individual that one is not acquainted with wordnet
- 5 One not admitted to communion or fellowship.
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 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 walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit."
- 7 Used ironically to refer to a person who the speaker knows. humorous
"Hello, stranger!"
- 8 One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor. obsolete
"To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger."
- 9 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."
- 10 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. obsolete
- 1 To estrange; to alienate. obsolete, transitive
"Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath"
- 1 comparative form of strange: more strange comparative, form-of
"Truth is stranger than fiction."
Example
More examples"Poverty is a stranger to industry."
Etymology
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
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”).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.