alienation

American  

[ayl-yuh-nay-shuhn, ay-lee-uh-] / ˌeɪl jəˈneɪ ʃən, ˌeɪ li ə- /

noun

• alienations
  plural

1. the act of alienating, or of causing someone to become indifferent or hostile.

   The advocacy group fights against prejudice and social alienation of immigrants.

2. the state of being alienated, withdrawn, or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection.

   the group's alienation from mainstream society.

3. the act of turning away, transferring, or diverting.

   the alienation of land and resources from African peoples.

4. Law. a transfer of the title to property by one person to another; conveyance.

5. Statistics. the lack of correlation in the variation of two measurable variates over a population.

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alienation British  

/ ˌeɪljəˈneɪʃən, ˌeɪlɪə- /

noun

1. a turning away; estrangement

2. the state of being an outsider or the feeling of being isolated, as from society

3. psychiatry a state in which a person's feelings are inhibited so that eventually both the self and the external world seem unreal

4. law

   1. the transfer of property, as by conveyance or will, into the ownership of another

   2. the right of an owner to dispose of his property

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alienation Cultural  

1. A feeling of separation or isolation. In social science, alienation is associated with the problems caused by rapid social change, such as industrialization and urbanization (see Industrial Revolution), which has broken down traditional relationships among individuals and groups and the goods and services they produce.

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Discover More

Marxism holds that workers in capitalist nations are alienated because they have no claim to ownership of the products they make.

Alienation is most often associated with minorities, the poor, the unemployed, and other groups who have limited power to bring about changes in society.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonalienation
  noun
• realienation
  noun
• alienative
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• alienations
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of alienation

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin aliēnātiōn- (stem of aliēnātiō ), equivalent to aliēnāt ( us ) ( see alienate) + -iōn- -ion

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Explanation

An easy way to experience alienation from your nice-smelling friends is to go a month without bathing. Alienation is a state of being cut off or separate from a person or group of people. The noun alienation describes the feeling that you're not part of a group. Your political views might cause you to feel a sense of alienation from the rest of your family, or your vegetarianism could result in alienation from your meat-eating friends. The Latin word for alien is alienus, "belonging to another." That idea of not belonging, or not fitting in, gave rise to the Latin verb alienare, "to estrange," which alienation comes from.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

alienation alienations

Now one of their own had become mayor, and some Jewish New Yorkers were experiencing a sense of alienation that she recognized.

From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026

Vladimir Tikhonov, Korean Studies professor at the University of Oslo, told AFP Guryong "symbolises the alienation of the urban poor from the mainstream of South Korean society".

From Barron's ● Aug. 4, 2026

Yet despite its blind spots the book is a step toward an embrace of fathers at a moment when boys and men struggle with hostility and alienation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

Arnold put an ocean between himself and his family, but his alienation from his past has drained all the color from his life.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026

This was the turning point, they say, where Sapiens cast off its intimate symbiosis with nature and sprinted towards greed and alienation.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

Events of every description, changes, alienations, removals, – all, all must be comprised in it; and oblivion of the past – how natural, how certain too!

From Slate ● Feb. 13, 2021

John David Washington’s performance in BlacKkKlansman is impressive but the film’s quasi-Brechtian alienations and comic cartoonery arguably mean that it is more difficult to engage with his character emotionally.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 4, 2019

All the train of alienations, suspicions, earthly passions, which exist in our minds and are sure to issue in quarrels or bad blood, will be put down if we have 'salt in ourselves.'

From Expositions of Holy Scripture St. Mark by Alexander Maclaren

It provided that there should be free navigation of the Congo and Niger rivers, and freedom of trade for alienations within the Congo valley and certain other vaguely defined areas.

From The Expansion of Europe The Culmination of Modern History by Ramsay Muir

Events of every description, changes, alienations, removals--all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past-- how natural, how certain too!

From Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Related Words

• disaffection
• estrangement
• indifference
• separation

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