Alias

How to spell alias

5 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce alias

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alias mean?

1. nounA false or assumed name used in place of someone's real one.
2. adverbUsed to indicate an additional name by which a person is known; otherwise known as.

Alias in a sentence

• noun

  The fraudster opened the account under an alias.

• adverb

  The court records named the defendant as John Carter, alias Jack Steele.

• noun

  Detectives discovered that the suspect had used a different alias in each city.

• adverb

  The report referred to the agent as Operative Twelve, alias the Watchman.

Where does alias come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes straight from Latin alias, an adverb meaning 'at another time' or 'otherwise', formed from alius, which simply meant 'other' or 'another'. In medieval and early legal Latin it was used to link a person's two names, as in 'known otherwise as', and English borrowed it in this exact function in the fifteenth century. From that connecting adverb it hardened into a noun for the assumed second name itself, the sense most people reach for today. The same alius root sits behind English words like 'alien' (literally belonging to another place) and 'alibi' (literally 'elsewhere'), which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the Latin -ias ending rather than an English-looking -ius. Because it is a direct Latin loan, it has never been anglicised, and the slightly unexpected single 'l' and the ending are the main things writers stumble over.

How the word is built

• alias (from Latin alius: other, another)