To make someone feel separated, isolated, or unfriendly toward you; to cause someone to feel like an outsider or unwelcome.
From Latin alienatus meaning estranged, from alienus meaning strange or foreign. The word moved from describing legal transfer of property to describing emotional separation by the 1600s, with the sense of 'making strange or foreign' evolving into psychological distance.
Teenagers often report feeling alienated from society, and sociologists study 'alienation' as when people feel disconnected from their work, culture, or themselves. Marx used this concept to describe workers feeling separated from the value of their labor—a word that became central to understanding modern life.
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