Etymologically
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strange

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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
  • 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