alienation
noun
Simple meaning
The feeling of being alienated from other people.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ayleeuhnayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
eɪliəˈneɪʃən
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The state of being alienated.
The feeling of being alienated from other people
The action of alienating; the action of causing to become unfriendly
The act of alienating.
Emotional isolation or dissociation.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The state of being alienated.
Used this way, alienation is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use alienation
- “The power of alienation is an essential ingredient of ownership.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A tort based on willful and malicious interference with the marriage relation by a third party without justification or excuse.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: being alienated
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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.