xeno-
Americancombining form
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Usage
What does xeno- mean? Xeno- is a combining form used like a prefix meaning “alien,” “strange,” or “guest.” It is used in a variety of domains, including in botany, medicine, mineralogy, the social sciences, and zoology.Xeno- comes from the Greek xénos, a noun meaning “stranger, guest" or an adjective meaning “foreign, strange.” The name of the chemical element (and noble gas) Xenon also derives from the Greek xénos.What are variants of xeno-?When combined with words or word elements that begin with a vowel, xeno- becomes xen-, as in xenarthral.
Etymology
Origin of xeno-
Combining form of Greek xénos stranger, guest (noun); alien, foreign, strange (adj.)
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.
“Some of it, as you can see, is pretty gory, horrific deaths. Some caused by the Xeno, some by other creatures, some by humans, who are the real animals.”
From Salon
“I don’t know if some of the older movies had some of the stunt techniques that we have now, the wire work, and the fact that we can kind of fly the Xeno around and stuff like that. So it’s not so much just coming out and scaring you and having that kind of jump scare. It’s literally flying through the air. It’s chasing.”
From Salon
He was back on his feet by the early 1990s, said his son Xeno Rasmusson, but stopped performing in 2018 after he had a heart attack and seizure.
From Washington Post
The mini-fest offers an audio-visual feast, with new wave pioneer Gary Numan leading the lineup on Friday alongside Adult, Xeno & Oaklander and Kanga.
From Los Angeles Times
Human immune systems won’t tolerate cross-species, or “xeno,” transplants because many pig genes code for incompatible proteins, and the Prather group wanted to cripple production of one protein that triggers particularly strong antibody responses.
From Science Magazine
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.