estrange

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English estraungen,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman estraunger and Old French estranger,^[4][5] also estrangier,^[6][7] modern French étranger.^[8][4] These are from Latin extrāneāre (“to treat as a stranger, disown”),^[8][2][9] a form that Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein mark as reconstructed Vulgar Latin,^[10][3][6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com call Medieval Latin,^[11][12] and Collins Late Latin.^[13] It comes from extrāneus (“foreign, from without”),^[10][8][2] the source of strange and extraneous,^[10][3] from extrā (“outside”).^[3][2] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the early 12th century.^[14] The same Latin verb gave Occitan estranhar, Spanish estrañar, Portuguese estranhar and Italian straniare.^[8][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To remove from an accustomed place or occupation: 1485, in Caxton's translation of Paris and Vienne.^[8] Barnhart finds the verb probably before 1475, with the sense "alienate",^[3] and Etymonline, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to the late 15th century.^[10][4][9]

Semantic evolution

The Anglo-Norman verb already meant to disown, to separate or drive apart, and to deprive or exclude.^[14] In English the sense of removing someone from a place or a way of life came first, and it is now archaic.^[8][5] Alienation in feeling or affection, the sense that survives, appears before 1513 in Fabyan's chronicle.^[8] A statute of 1523 uses the verb for severing someone from a community or taking possessions from their owner,^[8] while between 1547 and 1622 it could mean to make a person unlike himself, even to madden.^[8] From 1616, in Jonson, it could also mean to make something look strange, to disguise it.^[8] Johnson (1755) gives "to keep at a distance" and "to alienate; to divert from its original use or possessor".^[15] Today the verb is usually passive, followed by from, and is said especially of a husband or wife who lives apart from the other.^[13][5] An adjective estrange, "distant, reserved", taken from Old French estrange, is recorded from about 1374 in Chaucer and did not last.^[8]

Timeline

• 1485 – to remove from an accustomed place or occupation.^[8]
• before 1513 – to alienate in feeling or affection.^[8]
• 1523 – to treat as alien; to remove possessions from an owner (now archaic).^[8]
• 1547 – to make unlike oneself, to madden (obsolete by 1622).^[8]
• 1611 – to withhold from someone's knowledge (obsolete by 1676).^[8]
• 1616 – to make strange in appearance, to disguise (now archaic).^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cause someone to lose affection or trust; to alienate: A long quarrel over the will estranged the two sisters.^[13][11][8]
2. To separate and live apart from one's spouse, usually in the passive: She has been estranged from her husband for years.^[13]
3. To remove or keep at a distance from a usual place, company or occupation.^[11][12][8]
4. (archaic) To divert from its original use or owner.^[12][15][8]

Word family

• estrangement
• estranger

Related words

• strange
• stranger
• extraneous
• extra

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.