adj.
- Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents.
- Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. See synonyms at foreign.
- Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature: emotions alien to her temperament.
- An unnaturalized foreign resident of a country. Also called noncitizen.
- A person from another and very different family, people, or place.
- A person who is not included in a group; an outsider.
- A creature from outer space: a story about an invasion of aliens.
- Ecology. An organism, especially a plant or animal, that occurs in or is naturalized in a region to which it is not native.
To transfer (property) to another; alienate.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin aliēnus, from alius, other.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
