stranger

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   comparative form of strange: more strange

   Truth is stranger than fiction.

2. 2
   noun

   A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.

   That gentleman is a stranger to me.

3. 3
   noun

   An outsider or foreigner.

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

4. 4
   noun

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   Used ironically to refer to a person who the speaker knows.

   Hello, stranger!

6. 6
   noun

   One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.

   To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger.

7. 7
   noun

   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.

8. 8
   verb

   To estrange; to alienate.

   Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath

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”).