strange

Pronunciation

• IPA: /streɪndʒ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English straunge, strounge,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French estrange (“foreign, alien, unusual, unfamiliar; distant; estranged”) (modern French étrange),^[3][2] with loss of the first syllable,^[4][5][6] from Latin extrāneus (“foreign, external, from without”),^[3][2] from extrā (“outside of”),^[3][2] the feminine ablative of exter “outward”, from ex “out of”.^[2][7] It is a doublet of estrange and extraneous.^[2][8] Stranger is from Old French estrangier, 1375.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

“From elsewhere, foreign, unknown, unfamiliar”: about 1280 in Barnhart,^[2] about 1290 in the OED, of something belonging to another place or neighbourhood,^[9] and about 1300 in Etymonline.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English it meant “not belonging to the place where found” in any sense, of religious groups, guilds and households as well as towns.^[3] The sense “surprising, queer” is implied from about 1300,^[3] and “aloof, reserved, distant, like a stranger” is by the mid-14th century.^[3] To make strange, “to seem surprised or shocked”, is from the mid-15th century,^[3] and as an interjection of wonder it is from the 1660s.^[3] The biblical strange woman, a harlot, is from Coverdale (1535), where it translates Hebrew words meaning “not one's own” woman.^[3][9] In particle physics strange, of a quark, is from 1956.^[3] The surname Lestrange is from the late 12th century.^[3] The verb strange, “to estrange; to make or become strange”, from the late 14th century, survives only in Scots and dialect.^[5][9]

Timeline

• c. 1280 – foreign, unfamiliar.^[2]
• c. 1300 – surprising, queer.^[3]
• mid-14th century – aloof.^[3]
• 1535 – strange woman.^[3][9]
• 1660s – interjection.^[3]
• 1956 – in particle physics.^[3]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Not known before; unfamiliar.
2. Out of the ordinary; unusual or striking; odd.
3. From another place; foreign or exotic.
4. Reserved in manner; distant.
5. Not comfortable or at ease; out of place.
6. In physics, having the property of strangeness: a strange quark.

Adverb

1. (informal) In a strange manner.

Word family

• strangely
• unstrange
• strangeness
• strange quark
• strange woman

Related words

• estrange
• estranged
• stranger
• extraneous
• extra
• exterior

Usage notes

The American Heritage distinguishes strange, especially of what is unfamiliar or unknown, from peculiar, odd, queer, quaint, outlandish, singular, eccentric and curious.^[10]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin