foreign

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   relating to or originating in or characteristic of another place or part of the world

   foreign nations

2. 2
   adj

   of concern to or concerning the affairs of other nations (other than your own)

   foreign trade

3. 3
   adj

   Located outside a country or place, especially one's own.

   foreign markets; foreign soil

4. 4
   adj

   Originating from, characteristic of, belonging to, or being a citizen of a country or place other than the one under discussion.

   foreign car; foreign word; foreign citizen; foreign trade

5. 5
   adj

   Relating to a different nation.

   foreign policy; foreign navies

6. 6
   adj

   Not characteristic of or naturally taken in by an organism or system.

   foreign body; foreign substance; foreign gene; foreign species

7. 7
   adj

   Alien; strange; uncharacteristic.

   It was completely foreign to their way of thinking.

8. 8
   adj

   Held at a distance; excluded; exiled.

   Kept him a foreign man still; which so grieved him, / That he ran mad and died.

Etymology

From Middle English foreyn, forein, from Old French forain, from Vulgar Latin *forānus (“outsider, outlander”), from Latin forās (“outside, outdoors”) or forīs (“outside, outdoors”). Displaced native Old English elþēodiġ (“foreign”) and now-dialectal English fremd, from Old English fremde (“strange, foreign”). The silent -g- added perhaps by analogy with reign (compare also sovereign which was similarly altered).