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

On the other end of the spectrum are our urban and rural districts which have a substantially lower tax base and a larger number of underprivileged and non-native English Language speakers. —Michael Maguire, Boston Herald, 4 Jan. 2026

Participants will help remove non-native invasive plants from Quarry Park on some Saturdays through April, depending on the weather. —Nollyanne Delacruz, Mercury News, 30 Dec. 2025

Those non-native species can introduce potentially fatal diseases into the ecosystem, killing off other frogs, or even snakes and salamanders. —Laura Schulte, jsonline.com, 26 Dec. 2025

But non-native trees also can be problematic, spreading rapidly and pushing out native species. —Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 23 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1845, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for non-native

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