ESTRANGE

estrange, alienate, disaffect

(verb) arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; “She alienated her friends when she became fanatically religious”

estrange

(verb) remove from customary environment or associations; “years of boarding school estranged the child from her home”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Verb

estrange (third-person singular simple present estranges, present participle estranging, simple past and past participle estranged)

(transitive) To cause to feel less close or friendly; alienate. To cease contact with (particularly of a family member or spouse, especially in form estranged).

(transitive) To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations.

Usage notes

Largely synonymous with alienate, estrange is primarily used to mean “cut off relations”, particularly in a family setting, while alienate is rather used to refer to driving off (“he alienated her with his atrocious behavior”) or to offend a group (“the imprudent remarks alienated the urban demographic”).

When speaking of parents being estranged from a child of theirs, disown is frequently used instead, and has a stronger connotation.

Synonyms

• (cause to feel less close): alienate, antagonize, disaffect, isolate

• (remove from an accustomed context): wean

Coordinate terms

• disown

Anagrams

• Sergeant, angerest, enragest, grantees, greatens, negaters, reagents, rentages, reägents, seargent, segreant, sergeant, sternage

Source: Wiktionary


Es*trange", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Estranged; p. pr. & vb. n. Estranging.] Etym: [OF. estrangier to remove, F. Ă©tranger, L. extraneare to treat as a stranger, from extraneus strange. See Strange.]

1. To withdraw; to withhold; hence, reflexively, to keep at a distance; to cease to be familiar and friendly with. We must estrange our belief from everything which is not clearly and distinctly evidenced. Glanvill. Had we . . . estranged ourselves from them in things indifferent. Hooker.

2. To divert from its original use or purpose, or from its former possessor; to alienate. They . . . have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods. Jer. xix. 4.

3. To alienate the affections or confidence of; to turn from attachment to enmity or indifference. I do not know, to this hour, what it is that has estranged him from me. Pope. He . . . had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs, and had promised to act as a spy upon them. Macaulay.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



RESET




Word of the Day

30 January 2025

HYPERICISM

(noun) a severe dermatitis of herbivorous domestic animals attributable to photosensitivity from eating Saint John’s wort


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Coffee Trivia

Decaffeinated coffee is not caffeine-free. Studies from the National Institute of Health (US) have shown that virtually all decaf coffee types contain caffeine. A 236-ml (8-oz) cup of decaf coffee contains up to 7 mg of caffeine, whereas a regular cup provided 70-140 mg.

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