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alien

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

A citizen or national of another sovereign state.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ayleeuhn

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈeɪliən

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A citizen or national of another sovereign state.

  2. Any life form of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origin.

  3. A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration.

  4. One excluded from certain privileges; one alienated or estranged.

adjective

  1. Not belonging to the same country, land, or government, or to the citizens or subjects thereof; foreign.

  2. Pertaining to extraterrestrial life; typical of an extraterrestrial creature.

  3. Very unfamiliar, strange, or removed.

verb

  1. transitive

    To estrange; to alienate.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Not belonging to the same country, land, or government, or to the citizens or subjects thereof; foreign.

Used this way, alien is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in government or politics contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Government/politics

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use alien

  • “The will aliened the property to the heirs.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Life / pertaining

alien world

Comes / belonging

alien land

Animal

alien species

Other combinations

resident aliennonresident alienalien culturealien rulealien property

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • alienationnounDerived noun

    The feeling of being alienated from other people.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • alien abscondernounCompound term

    A fugitive remaining in the United States after an immigration judge has ordered them deported.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: citizen or national of another sovereign state

noncitizenRare

adjective

Sense: not belonging to the same country or land

foreignstrangeArchaicexoticextrinsicalienateArchaic

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.