alien

1 of 3

adjective

ˈā-lē-ən

ˈāl-yən

Synonyms of alien next

: belonging or relating to another person, place, or thing : strange

an alien environment

: relating, belonging, or owing allegiance to another country or government : foreign

alien residents

: exotic sense 1

alien plants

: coming from another world : extraterrestrial

alien beings

an alien spaceship

When it comes to knowing what alien life forms might be like, we don't have any idea.—

Kate Shuster

: differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility

ideas alien to democracy

alienly adverb

alienness

ˈā-lē-ən-nəs

ˈāl-yən-nəs

noun

alien

2 of 3

noun

: a person who is not of a particular group or place

aliens seeking asylum in the U.S.

In this way it came to pass that those scattered linen-weavers—emigrants from the town into the country—were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic neighbours …—

George Eliot

… she whom we had deemed so … pious, at last died an alien from the church …—

Delia Salter Bacon

: a foreign-born resident who has not been naturalized and is still a subject or citizen of a foreign country

broadly : a foreign-born citizen

: extraterrestrial

a movie about an invasion of Earth by monstrous aliens

: exotic sense 1

Russian thistle, kudzu, and other aliens

alien

3 of 3

verb

aliened; aliening; aliens

transitive verb

: alienate, estrange

: to transfer the title of (property)

Choose the Right Synonym for alien

extrinsic, extraneous, foreign, alien mean external to a thing, its essential nature, or its original character.

extrinsic applies to what is distinctly outside the thing in question or is not contained in or derived from its essential nature.

sentimental value that is extrinsic to the house's market value

extraneous applies to what is on or comes from the outside and may or may not be capable of becoming an essential part.

arguments extraneous to the issue

foreign applies to what is so different as to be rejected or repelled or to be incapable of becoming assimilated.

techniques foreign to French cuisine

alien is stronger than foreign in suggesting opposition, repugnance, or irreconcilability.

a practice totally alien to her nature

Example Sentences

Adjective they were careful to learn of any alien business customs before trying to expand overseas it's completely alien to her nature to wish evil of anyone Noun aliens seeking asylum in the U.S. He claims that he was captured by space aliens. Verb such angry outbursts will rapidly alien any friends you might possibly have left the couple plans to alien the adjoining house lot to their eldest son See More

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

And as first detailed on Monday in Nature Astronomy, the team’s new AI machine learning modeling is already showing potential to speed up humanity’s search for alien life. —

Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 6 Mar. 2023 Looking like the lovechild of an alien life form and a gumdrop, the genus Thismia (commonly known as fairy lanterns) is one of the plant world’s stranger creations. —

Melissa Breyer, Treehugger, 27 Feb. 2023 Work still must be done to find the right way to sterilize the alien material. —

The Salt Lake Tribune, 5 Sep. 2022 Work still must be done to find the right way to sterilize the alien material. —

Sarah Scoles, New York Times, 31 Aug. 2022 And in December, Vice President Al Gore met with leading scholars to discuss the implications of finding evidence of alien life, and to chart a course for NASA’s future exploration of Mars. —

Elise Cutts, Discover Magazine, 17 Feb. 2023 The search for alien life is fundamentally a data sorting challenge. —

Georgina Torbet, The Verge, 6 Feb. 2023 The result is ostensibly an additional proofreader for potential signs of alien life able to highlight possible anomalies human eyes or even other AI programs might miss. —

Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 31 Jan. 2023 Multiple government reviews have found no evidence that the flying objects, as well as others that have been spotted in the ocean or moving back and forth between the air and the sea, can be attributed to alien life or extraterrestrial visitors. —

Shane Harris, Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2023

Noun

Old Babes in the Wood gives readers Atwood at her most whimsical: a snail swaps bodies with a human, an alien tries to translate a fairy tale, a seance summons the ghost of George Orwell. —

Kate Knibbs, WIRED, 7 Mar. 2023 Narayana Montúfar, a senior astrologer at Astrology.com and author of Moon Signs: Unlock Your Inner Luminary Power, attributes this eccentric, almost alien-like (in the best way possible) quality to the sign’s planetary rulers: Saturn and Uranus. —

Jacqueline Tempera, Women's Health, 27 Feb. 2023 Kang's deal is slightly more confusing than the last MCU big bad, a large purple alien collecting pieces of jewelry. —

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 15 Feb. 2023 The scale of the proceedings is human, and the pace is human, the triumph of the Schwarzeneggerian will over the space alien is human, too. —

Wyatt Mason, Harper’s Magazine , 6 Jan. 2023 Rock allowed a man four inches taller—one of the most recognized and popular men on the planet –to stride up to him, on a stage before millions of eyeballs live and smack him across the face like an unwelcome alien. —

Roy S. Johnson | Rjohnson@al.com, al, 29 Mar. 2022 Shaun the Sheep and friends have got to help an alien find her way home after a crash landing near Mossy Bottom Farm in a romp that's fun for the whole family. —

Amanda Garrity, Good Housekeeping, 13 Feb. 2023 More funny than annoying, still better than Signs' Joaquin Phoenix pummeling an alien with a baseball bat. —

Darren Franich, EW.com, 8 Feb. 2023 An alien is trying to blend in as an office worker, and the impressive rendering of the extraterrestrial against its flimsy disguise is pretty funny. —

Jacob Linden, Country Living, 7 Feb. 2023

Verb

While on Earth, Thomas patents alien technology and gets very rich, with the intention of using it to build a vessel to bring water home. —

Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Sep. 2022 But even that description fails to capture what Yagi is after: those parts of us, precious and possibly hostile, which flower in darkness, disintegrate when described, and can be compared only to alien life-forms. —

Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022 Neanderthal to alien, and yet strangely well-suited for the modern era. —

Nick Remsen, CNN, 30 Sep. 2021 These stars and related systems should be priority one for current and future efforts to seek out exoplanets that may bear not only life but perhaps even alien technological civilizations, some astronomers say. —

Tess Joosse, Scientific American, 1 July 2021 Can alien smog lead us to extraterrestrial civilizations? —

Whitson Gordon, Wired, 8 Apr. 2021 Can alien smog lead us to extraterrestrial civilizations? —

Whitson Gordon, Wired, 8 Apr. 2021 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'alien.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Word History

Etymology

Adjective

Middle English, "foreign," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin aliēnus "not one's own, of others, foreign, strange," derivative of alius "other" (perhaps going back to *aliai-nos, from an adverbialized locative derivative *aliai "elsewhere") — more at else

Noun

Middle English, "foreigner, outsider," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin aliēnus "slave belonging to another person, foreigner, stranger," noun derivative of aliēnus, adjective, "not one's own, foreign" — more at alien entry 1

Verb

Middle English alienen "to transfer or surrender property rights, exclude," borrowed from Anglo-French aliener (Middle French, "to estrange, deprive of reason"), borrowed from Latin alienāre "to transfer (goods, property), lose possession of, render hostile" — more at alienate

First Known Use

Adjective

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Noun

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler

The first known use of alien was in the 14th century

See more words from the same century