alienation

American  

[eyl-yuh-ney-shuhn, ey-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 the state of being alienated, withdrawn, or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection.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

Etymology

Origin of alienation

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

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

The conception of the role, marked by a dim view of stardom’s suffocating alienation, was something Jolie clearly understood.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026

What if the destruction of your planet left you with a permanent case of agonized alienation, and you became a weird, antisocial loner who hung out in bars drinking alone?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 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

She says she connected with Eminem's work early on - especially the feeling of being out of step with the world around you and turning that alienation into music.

From BBC ● May 15, 2026

These studies indicate that the biggest problem the black community may face today is not “shamelessness” but rather the severe isolation, distrust, and alienation created by mass incarceration.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

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

The friendship and patronage of Montrose were secure until money transactions, the usual source of alienations and bickerings, produced distrust on the one hand, and bitterness on the other.

From Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 Volume II. by Thomson, Mrs.

Will you say that the alienations made before the 11th of Elizabeth shall not stand good?

From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12) by Burke, Edmund

That all this social ceremony is upon the whole a good thing cannot be doubted, for it prevents many alienations, and heals in their early stages many cases of strained relations.

From Village Life in China A Study in Sociology by Smith, Arthur H.

Related Words

• disaffection
• estrangement
• indifference
• separation