stranger

Etymology

From Old French estrangier (“foreign, alien”), from estrange, from Latin extraneus (“foreign, external”) (whence also English estrange), from extra (“outside of”). Displaced native Old English eldritch.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈstɹeɪndʒɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈstɹeɪndʒə/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪndʒə(ɹ)

Adjective

stranger

1. comparative form of strange: more strange
   • Truth is stranger than fiction. (English proverb)

Noun

stranger (plural strangers)

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.  Children are taught not to talk to strangers.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, OCLC 16832619:

     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 made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

2. An outsider or foreigner.
   • William Shakespeare (c.1564–1616)

     I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions.

   • George Granville (1666-1735)

     Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.

   • 1961, Robert A. Heinlein: “Stranger in a Strange Land”
3. A newcomer.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 7, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     […] 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.

4. (humorous) One who has not been seen for a long time.

   Hello, stranger!

5. (obsolete) One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.
   • John Milton (1608-1674)

     To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger.

6. (law) 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.

Verb

stranger (third-person singular simple present strangers, present participle strangering, simple past and past participle strangered)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To estrange; to alienate.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

Anagrams

• granters, regrants