stranger

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. Cognate with French étranger (“foreigner, stranger”) and Spanish extranjero (“foreigner”).

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

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪndʒə(ɹ)

stranger

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

• See strange

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, […], 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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

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

   • (Can we date this quote?) George Granville

     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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     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.

• (person whom one does not know):
• (outsider, foreigner): alien, foreigner, foreign national, non-national/nonnational, non-resident/nonresident, outsider
• (newcomer): newbie, newcomer

• (person whom one does not know): acquaintance, friend
• (outsider, foreigner): compatriot, countryman, fellow citizen, fellow countryman, national, resident
• (newcomer):

• be no stranger to
• don't be a stranger
• stranger danger

• myall

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?)

• granters, regrants