otherness
Americannoun
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the state or fact of being different or distinct.
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the quality or state of being perceived or treated as different, foreign, strange, etc..
Certain ethnic groups embrace their otherness.
noun
Etymology
Origin of otherness
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“A lot of them were exploring otherness and self-discovery through the archetypes of the genre because it was a way to express it at a time when those ideas were taboo,” he says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026
What Thompson-Hernández’s art so easily dispels, no matter the genre it finds a home in, are all the knotty, misguided and trite representations of otherness in our contemporary world.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 27, 2026
But the sense of otherness remained, even after Carlile married and had two kids with British charity director Catherine Shepherd.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025
And I hope that any amount of otherness or racism they've experienced, they can find some catharsis and they can be proud to see Asian culture represented.
From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2023
And her English, her immigrant English, has a touch of otherness that makes it unintentionally prerise.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.