Alien

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈeɪ.li.ən/

Definitions

1. A being from another world or planet, or something foreign and unfamiliar to one's experience
2. a person or creature originating from a different country or celestial body, or something that feels strange and incompatible with one's own world
3. a foreigner, extraterrestrial being, or anything perceived as unfamiliar and disconnected from ordinary experience

Etymology: Latin "aliēnus" meant "belonging to someone else," and its root "alius" means "other," so the word's core idea is simply otherness. Before it described creatures from outer space, it was a plain legal and social term for something that belonged to another person or another place. A foreigner was an "alien" in the sense of someone who did not belong to your community, and that ordinary sense of outsiderness is what the modern meaning grew out of. The word came into English through Old French "alien" and "aliene," and its earliest English uses in Middle English kept this legal and social flavour, describing a person or thing that was foreign or belonging elsewhere. The sense of a being from another world came much later, as the idea of other worlds became a subject of imagination and speculation. The same root gives English "else," which is why "alien" and "else" share the idea of "other." Few English speakers would spot the kinship between a visitor from another planet and the word "else," but both descend from the Proto-Indo-European notion of something that is simply not the one at hand.

Synonyms: foreigner, stranger, outsider, extraterrestrial, non-native

Antonyms: native, local, insider, citizen, familiar