Foreign

How to spell foreign

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce foreign

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does foreign mean?

1. adjectiveBelonging to, coming from, or characteristic of a country or place other than one's own; or strange and unfamiliar.

Foreign in a sentence

• She enjoys learning foreign languages.

• Many foreign films play at this cinema.

• The concept was entirely foreign to me.

Where does foreign come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word arrived in English in the 1200s from the Old French forein or forain, meaning 'outside' or 'on the outside', which in turn descended from the Late Latin foranus, 'on the outside'. That Latin word was built on foras and foris, adverbs that literally meant 'out of doors' and were related to the Latin word for a door, fores. The original idea was simply something or someone from outside, beyond one's own household or country, and the modern sense of 'belonging to another nation' grew naturally from that. The notorious spelling trap, the silent 'g', is in fact a historical accident: the original spelling was forein, with no 'g' at all, but scribes later inserted one by false analogy with words like reign and sovereign, which do trace back to Latin words containing a 'g'. So the letter that catches modern writers out was never part of the word's true root; it was borrowed cosmetically.

How the word is built

• forein (from Latin foras/foris: out of doors, outside)
• -g (inserted by mistaken analogy with words like reign and sovereign)