estrangement

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the state or process of losing affection, trust, or contact in a personal relationship

   Years of estrangement ended when the sisters began writing to each other again.

2. 2
   noun

   a feeling of being alienated from a group, place, or former way of life

   Migration left him with a lasting sense of estrangement from his hometown.

Formed from estrange + -ment, after Old French estrangement. Estrange came through Old French estranger from Latin extraneus, 'external or foreign,' based on extra, 'outside.' The word therefore pictures people or places once familiar as having become strange or outside one's emotional world.

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