stranger

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈstɹeɪnd͡ʒə(ɹ)/ (UK); /ˈstɹeɪnd͡ʒɚ/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English straunger, borrowed from Old French estrangier (“foreigner”), with loss of the first syllable,^[2][3][4] from estrange (“strange, foreign”), from Latin extraneus (“external, foreign”) (see strange);^[2][4][5] Etymonline allows that it may also be formed in English from strange and -er.^[2] Latin used extraneus itself as a noun for a stranger.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A foreigner, one who comes from another country: 1375 in the OED,^[6] the late 14th century in Etymonline.^[2]

Semantic evolution

An unknown person, someone not seen before, is from about 1385,^[6] and a guest or visitor, as opposed to the members of a household, from about 1400.^[6] A person who is not a member of a nation, group or family is from the 15th century.^[2] The sense, someone who has stopped visiting, as in don't be a stranger, is from the 1520s,^[2] and stranger as a form of address to an unknown person is rural American from 1817.^[2] A newborn baby was playfully called a little stranger from the 17th century.^[6] Etymonline notes that the noun never took the sense odd of the adjective strange.^[2] In northern Yorkshire a stranger was also a through-stone in a wall.^[7]

Timeline

• 1375 – a foreigner.^[6]
• c. 1385 – an unknown person.^[6]
• c. 1400 – a guest or visitor.^[6]
• 1520s – one who has stopped visiting.^[2]
• 1817 – a form of address.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person one does not know.
2. A newcomer to a place; a foreigner or outsider.
3. A person unfamiliar with something: no stranger to hardship.
4. (law) A person who is not a party to an agreement or action.

Word family

• strangerlike

Related words

• strange
• estrange
• extraneous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)