non-native

adjective

non-na·​tive ˌnän-ˈnā-tiv 

variants or nonnative

: not native: such as

a

of a plant or animal : living or growing in a place that is not the location of its natural occurrence

a non-native fish species

… overgrazing causes grasslands to give way to sagebrush, mesquite and non-native exotic grasses, environmentalists contend.

—Doug McInnis

b

: not born or raised in the place where a particular language is spoken

non-native inhabitants

a nonnative speaker of English [=a person who speaks English but whose native language is not English]

non-native noun

or nonnative

plural non-natives or nonnatives

popular among both natives and non-natives

Synonyms of non-native

• foreign

Examples of non-native in a Sentence

nonnative customs that made the recent immigrants stand out in their new country

Recent Examples on the Web

In August, the National Park Service removed 77 invasive trees, according to court records, which means non-native species that can spread aggressively and harm native ecosystems, along with 73 trees that were either dead, dying or hazardous. — Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 22 Oct. 2026

Pangram ran an internal study using a database of non-native English texts and self-reported that false positive rate was around 8 in 10,000. — T.m. Brown, CNN Money, 21 Oct. 2026

Based on his observations thus far, Spasojevic believes the burros could play an important role in the local ecosystem by grazing on non-native grasses and preventing them from overtaking native plants. — Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2026

In January, a non-native straw crest moth (Mesophleps silacella) was discovered during a routine inspection of luggage from Ghana. — Joseph Buczek, CBS News, 20 Sep. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1845, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for non-native

• creative
• locative
• nonnative
• probative
• rotative
• accommodative
• accumulative
• adjudicative
• administrative
• affiliative
• agglutinative
• ameliorative