stranger — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.

   Examples

   That gentleman is a stranger to me.

   Children are taught not to talk to strangers.

   More examples (2)

   In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.[…]Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

   Our love (our love, our love) / Our love is in danger (danger) / And if you don't hurry home / I might give it to a stranger

2. An outsider or foreigner.

   Examples

   I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions.

   Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.

   More examples (1)

   I like to be a stranger myself—it was my destiny; but I wish to be the only stranger.

3. One not admitted to communion or fellowship.

4. A newcomer.

   Examples

   More examples (3)

   […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

   The first thing that strikes the stranger is the sharpness of the curves on the metre gauge; it is not unusual for a long train to be travelling in three directions at once, and the engine is frequently in full view of the windows of the ninth or tenth carriage.

   Wearing number 66 for his club side, Alexander-Arnold is no stranger to an unusual shirt number. Regardless, the sight of the right-back wearing 10 in central midfield for England was guaranteed to catch the eye.

5. Used ironically to refer to a person who the speaker knows.

   Usage

   • Humorous

   Examples

   Hello, stranger!

6. One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

   To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger.

7. One not privy or party to an act, contract, or title; a mere intruder or intermeddler; one who interferes without right.

   Examples

   Actual possession of land gives a good title against a stranger having no title.

   More examples (1)

   [Judge Beverly] Davis then granted the adoption to the new wife of the boy's father; this action designated the boy's natural mother a "legal stranger," terminating all rights the mother had to visit her child.

8. A superstitious premonition of the coming of a visitor by a bit of stalk in a cup of tea, the guttering of a candle, etc.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

9. A moth, Lacanobia blenna

   Usage

   • sometimes
   • with-definite-article

Verb

1. To estrange; to alienate.

   Usage

   • Obsolete
   • Transitive

   Examples

   Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our oath

Noun

1. anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found

   Synonyms

   alienunknown

   Antonyms

   acquaintance

   Broader terms

   intruderinterlopertrespasser

2. an individual that one is not acquainted with

   Antonyms

   acquaintance

   Broader terms

   actordoerworker