alien

Meanings

1. A being from another planet.
2. In law, a person who is not a citizen of the country where they live.
3. Strange or unfamiliar.

Example sentences

• "The film centered on a friendly alien stranded on Earth."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "The rules felt alien to her at first."

  Level B2, Meaning 3

• "Scientists search for signs of alien life."

  Level B1, Meaning 1

• "The new city seemed alien to the boy."

  Level B2, Meaning 3

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• foreigner : Foreigner is the everyday word for a person from another country. Alien is a legal term or a science fiction word.
• stranger : A stranger is a person you do not know. An alien comes from another planet or another country.

Word family and forms

Forms: aliens

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "alien".

• a friendly alien
• an alien planet
• an alien invasion
• alien life
• an alien feeling
• illegal alien

Origin

Alien came into English in the 1300s from Old French alien, which took it from Latin alienus, belonging to someone else or foreign. The Latin word comes from alius, which means other. So alien first meant anyone or anything that belongs somewhere else.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Alien comes from the Latin word for other. An alien is someone or something from another place.

Test yourself

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