Alienation is the feeling of being cut off from those around you. A sense of alienation, social alienation, alienation from work.
Marx used it for the worker's separation from what they make, and the word carries that weight in any discussion of labour. In everyday use it is loneliness with an edge of estrangement — being among people and apart from them. In law, alienation is the transfer of property. Note alien, alienate.
1nounalienationThe feeling of being cut off from those around you.
“Many teenagers feel a sense of alienation from their parents and teachers.”
2nountransferThe transfer of property to another.
“The law forbade the alienation of church land without the bishop's consent.”
alienation is a separation.
Latin alienatio comes from alienus, belonging to another, from alius, other. Alien, else and alias come from the same otherness.
Latin
alienatio
Old French
alienacion
Middle English
alienacioun
English, today
alienation
From Middle English alienacioun, from Old French alienacion, from Latin alienatio.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Big Ideas