estrangement

Etymology

It is formed from English estrange + -ment.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb is from Old French estrangier, also estranger,^[6][7][2][8] from Vulgar Latin *extrāneō (“to treat as a stranger”),^[5][4][6] from Latin extrāneus (“foreign, from without”), the source of strange and extraneous.^[4][5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of estranging, or the condition of being estranged; separation or loss of affection: 1660, in Bishop J. Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium.^[2][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1650s,^[4] and the Shorter Oxford to the mid-17th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The OED records the verb from 1485 for removing someone from an accustomed place or association, and since 1523 for making someone alien.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "alienation; distance; removal; voluntary abstraction", and his quotation from South describes desires turned away from better things, not people turned away from each other.^[9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged puts first the loss of friendly feeling, but its quotations also show estrangement from a way of life and between fields of study.^[7] The Shorter Oxford also records countable use, for a particular instance, such as one caused by a quarrel.^[3] Collins notes that the passive of the verb is especially used of spouses living apart.^[10]

Timeline

• 1660 – separation, withdrawal, alienation in feeling.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of estranging someone, or the condition of being estranged; alienation, especially in a friendship or family: Years of silence ended in estrangement between the sisters.^[7][2][3]
2. A particular instance of this: The two brothers made up after a long estrangement.^[3]
3. Withdrawal from a way of life, a community or a field of activity.^[7][9]

Related words

• estrange
• estranged
• strange
• extraneous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ 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.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins