Alienators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. People or forces that induce feelings of detachment or estrangement among individuals in a community
2. Entities that foster a sense of isolation or division among group members, disrupting social cohesion
3. Individuals who produce feelings of separation or disconnection within groups

Etymology: "Alienators" is the plural of "alienator," so its story is really the story of the verb "alienate" and the agent ending that turns it into a noun for a doer. "Alienate" comes from the Latin "alienare," meaning to make something belong to another, which is built on "alienus," meaning belonging to someone else or foreign. English took the verb in the sense of transferring property, and the sense of estranging people from one another developed later from the same idea of something becoming someone else's. The "-or" ending is the suffix that marks a person or thing performing an action, as in "creator" or "debtor," and the plural "alienators" simply applies it to several such agents at once. Dictionaries record "alienator" as a noun for whatever fosters division within a group, so the word describes those who make others feel estranged rather than the estranged themselves.

Synonyms: estrangers, isolators

Antonyms: friends, allies