Alien

How to spell alien

5 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce alien

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alien mean?

1. nounA being from another world, or a person who is not a citizen of the country where they live.
2. adjectiveBelonging to another place, or strange and unfamiliar to one's own nature.

Alien in a sentence

• noun

  The film imagines a friendly alien landing in a quiet farm town.

• adjective

  The customs of the remote village felt completely alien to the visiting reporter.

• noun

  As a resident alien, she had to renew her work permit each year.

• adjective

  Such cruelty was utterly alien to his gentle character.

Where does alien come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin alienus, which meant 'belonging to another person or place', and that adjective was built directly on alius, the ordinary Latin word for 'other' or 'another'. English took it through Old French in the 1300s, at first to describe a person who belonged to another country, in other words a foreigner or someone owing allegiance elsewhere. From that legal and social sense it broadened to mean anything strange, unfamiliar, or out of keeping with its surroundings. The science-fiction meaning of a being from another planet is surprisingly recent, becoming common only in the twentieth century, yet it fits the old root perfectly because such a creature literally belongs to somewhere else. The same alius root also gives us 'alias' (an 'otherwise' name) and the verb 'alienate' (to make someone feel like an outsider), which is a useful memory hook for the single -i- followed by -en in the spelling.

How the word is built

• alien- (from Latin alienus: belonging to another)
• (noun/adjective use)