Unfamiliaizes

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To make someone or something unfamiliar or strange
2. To cause a person to lose familiarity or comfort with a situation or environment
3. To create a sense of estrangement or alienation in an individual or group

Etymology: "Unfamiliarize" is a straightforward formation: the verb "familiarize" with the negative prefix "un-" attached to the front. "Familiarize" itself comes from "familiar," which traces back through Old French "familier" to the Latin "familiaris," meaning "of the household," from "familia" (household, family). The sense of "familiar" as "well known" grew out of that household idea, since the people you know best are those who share your home. The prefix "un-" is an ordinary English negator, found in Old English and productive ever since, and it can be attached to many verbs to reverse their action, as in "unlock" or "untie." "Unfamiliarize" therefore means to make something no longer familiar, to strip away its everyday recognisability. The verb has a more specialised use in literary theory. Russian Formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky used the term "ostranenie" (often translated as "defamiliarization" or "estrangement") to describe art's power to make ordinary things look strange, so that readers perceive them afresh. "Unfamiliarize" is a near-synonym that appears in the same kind of discussion, though "defamiliarize" is the more common term in criticism.

Synonyms: alienates, estranges, distances

Antonyms: familiarizes, acculturates, integrates