alienate
AY-lee-uh-nayt
/ˈeɪ.li.ə.neɪt/
To cause someone to feel isolated, estranged, or hostile toward others.
Implies driving away affection or loyalty through specific offensive or cold actions.
The story behind the word. From Latin alienus, meaning belonging to another country or person. In Middle English, it originally meant legally transferring property to someone else before evolving into the modern psychological sense of making a friend feel like a foreign stranger.
Word relationships
- estrange: Estrange focuses on breaking a close personal or familial bond, whereas alienate applies broadly to groups and individuals.
- reconcile: Reconcile means restoring friendly relations after a dispute.
Commonly confused with
- isolate: Isolate refers to physical separation, while alienate refers to emotional turning away.
Word family
- alienation (noun): the state of feeling isolated or estranged
- alienated (adjective): feeling pushed away or unwelcome
Collocations
- alienate voters
- alienate supporters
- alienate friends
Example sentences
- "His harsh statements served to alienate voters who might otherwise have supported his campaign." Political Speech
Memory hook
To alienate someone is to turn them into an ALIEN stranger. Turn a friend into an alien stranger.
When not to use
Do not use for simple physical displacement where personal feelings are unchanged.
Fun facts
- In legal history, 'alienation' was the official term for transferring ownership of land to a buyer.
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