Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

estranged

adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,155 of 15,258leans written

Estranged means no longer in contact with a relative. His estranged wife, estranged from her family, an estranged son.

It is the formal word and it appears in obituaries and court reports, where it records a fact without explaining it. It usually describes a lasting silence rather than a quarrel, and the estrangement is often never formally announced by either side. Note strange, from which it comes.

Definitions of estranged

  1. 1adjectiveestrangedNo longer in contact with a relative.C1

    “She hasn't spoken to her estranged father since she was a teenager.”

estranged is a state of separation.

Where it comes from

  1. Latin

    extraneus — foreigner, stranger

  2. Old French

    estranger — to treat as a stranger

  3. English

    estrange

  4. English, today

    estranged

estrange comes from Old French estranger (“to treat as a stranger”), from Latin extraneus (“foreigner, stranger”) (from which also strange, stranger). Also see Spanish extraño.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Family & People

Practise this word

estranged in the wild

  • There, her husband is manipulated by his ensign Iago into believing she is an adulteress, and, in the last act, she is murdered by her estranged spouse.

    Desdemona

  • John Lloyd Wright became estranged from his father in 1909 and subsequently left his home to join his brother on the West Coast.

    John Lloyd Wright

  • Wendy and Carnie released a Christmas album together in 1993, and an album called The Wilsons in 1997, with their formerly estranged father, Brian.

    Wendy Wilson

  • Lily is Edna Birch's (Shirley Stelfox) estranged sister and the biological mother to Edna's son, Peter Birch (Philip Bird).

    Lily Butterfield

  • The film was directed by Randal Kleiser, and stars Edward Asner in the lead role of dying executive Adam Thornton and Maureen Stapleton as his estranged wife Kate.

    The Gathering (1977 film)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the estranger family

estranged

estranged — used about once every 8,182 pages · #11,155 · point at the bar for the others