strange
/stɹeɪnd͡ʒ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.64 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Not normal; odd, unusual, surprising, out of the ordinary, often with a negative connotation.
adj
Unfamiliar, not yet part of one's experience.
adj
Having the quantum mechanical property of strangeness.
Example Sentences
- "He thought it strange that his girlfriend wore shorts in the winter."
- "I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?"
- "Sated at length, ere long I might perceave / Strange alteration in me, to degree / Of Reason in my inward Powers, and Speech / Wanted not long, though to this shape retain’d."
- "When you're strange / Faces come out of the rain / When you're strange / No one remembers your name"
- "I moved to a strange town when I was ten."
- "[…] here is the hand and seal of the duke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵʰsteros Proto-Italic *eksteros Latin exter Latin extrā Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Italic *-nos Proto-Italic *-ānos Latin -ānus Proto-Indo-European *-éyos Proto-Italic *-ejos Proto-Italic *-eos Latin -eus Latin -āneus Latin extrāneusder. Old French estrange Anglo-Norman estraungebor. Middle English straunge English strange From Middle English straunge, strange, stronge, from Old French estrange, from Latin extrāneus (“that which is on the outside”). Doublet of extraneous and estrange. Cognate with French étrange (“strange, foreign”) and Spanish extraño (“strange, foreign”). Largely displaced native fremd, selcouth, and uncouth, from Old English fremede, seldcūþ, and uncūþ.