Other forms: stranger, strangest
Strange means unusual in a way you cannot quite explain. A strange noise from the boiler at two in the morning, a strange taste in the milk, a strange man standing outside the shop looking at the windows.
The word has a second, calmer meaning: unfamiliar, not known to you. A strange city, a strange bed, a strange face at the table. That is why a stranger is simply someone you have not met, with nothing odd about them. Strangely is the adverb, and strangely enough introduces something surprising. Be careful with people: calling someone strange is not neutral, because it hints that something about them is off, not merely that you do not know them.
1adjectivestrangeUnusual, surprising, and hard to explain.
“A strange light kept moving across the field behind the barn.”
2adjectiveunfamiliarNot known to you; unfamiliar.
“She woke in a strange room and needed a moment to remember the hotel.”
synonyms: unfamiliar, foreign
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: weird, odd
Strange came through Middle English straunge from Old French estrange, and before that Latin extrāneus, which meant that which is on the outside. The same Latin word gave English extraneous and estrange, so all three are relatives. The first meaning in English was foreign, from outside the group. Everything odd about the word grew out of everything outside.
Middle English
straunge
English, today
strange
From Middle English straunge. From Middle English straunge, strange, stronge, from Old French estrange, from Latin extrāneus (“that which is on the outside”). a doublet of extraneous and estrange. Cognate with French étrange (“strange, foreign”) and Spanish extraño (“strange, foreign”). Largely displaced native fremd, selcouth, and uncouth, from fremede, seldcūþ, and uncūþ.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA