stranger
noun
- person who is unknown to another person or group
- someone physically present in the Palace of Westminster who is neither a member of parliament nor a parliamentary official
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈstɹeɪnd͡ʒə(ɹ)/ / /ˈstɹeɪnd͡ʒɚ/
adj
Etymology: See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
- comparative form of strange: more strange
“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
noun
Etymology: 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”).
- 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.”
- An outsider or foreigner.
“I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions.”
“Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.”
- 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 walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.”
“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 the windows of the ninth or tenth carriage.”
- 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.”
- 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.”
- 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
verb
Etymology: 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”).
- To estrange; to alienate.
“Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath”