alienated

American  

[ey-lee-uh-ney-tid, eyl-yuh-] / ˈeɪ li əˌneɪ tɪd, ˈeɪl yə- /

adjective

1. indifferent or hostile.

   A year after the floods, the failure of the promised rehabilitation package has fed an already alienated populace's sense of hurt and anger towards the government.

2. withdrawn or isolated from the objective world.

   Albert Camus's novel The Stranger is the story of an alienated, unfeeling man who kills someone for no reason and dies without remorse.

3. turned away from its original purpose or course; transferred or diverted.

   The investment firm, which misappropriated millions of dollars committed to it, was required to restore the alienated funds to the plaintiff.

4. Law. (of property, title, rights, etc.) transferred or conveyed to another.

   Much reservation territory is now owned and controlled by non-Indigenous people, depriving Indigenous nations of billions of dollars in potential income from these alienated lands.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of alienate.

Other Word Forms

• unalienated adjective

Etymology

Origin of alienated

alienate ( def. ) + -ed ²

Example Sentences

But at a time when people increasingly feel alienated from politics, the rush to agree with them rather than change their minds creates a vicious cycle.

From BBC

Over time, as people are uprooted from their agricultural communities as industrialisation tears apart people's familiar attachments, individuals become "alienated", he says.

From BBC

He argued that modern life alienated human beings from their nature.

From The Wall Street Journal

He returns to the tragedy later in his survey after guilt has alienated the Macbeths from each other and they find themselves trapped in a nightmare of their own making.

From Los Angeles Times

They badly underestimated her massive star power, and they underestimated how much their decades of misrule had alienated most of the population.

From BBC

Related Words

• disaffected