# strange

Pronunciation: say "STRAYNJ" /stɹeɪnd͡ʒ/

## Adjective

1. Not normal; odd or unusual in a way that surprises and often unsettles.
   - Simple: Not normal or usual, and often a little worrying.
   - _There was something strange about the way he dodged every question._
   - _The town grew stranger the deeper they drove into the fog._
2. Unfamiliar; not yet part of what one has seen, known, or experienced.
   - Simple: Not known to you yet, and still unfamiliar.
   - _He felt lost among strange streets where no sign made sense._
   - _The recipe called for spices that were entirely strange to her kitchen._
5. Of a sexual partner or their body, unfamiliar and outside one's current relationship. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Used about a sexual partner who is new to you and outside your relationship.
   - _He admitted the appeal of a strange lover lay entirely in her being forbidden._
   - _Bored with his marriage, he started sneaking out in search of strange flesh._

## Noun

4. One of the six flavors of quark, heavier than the up and down quarks and carrying nonzero strangeness.
   - Simple: One of six kinds of quark, heavier than up and down quarks and carrying a property called strangeness.
   - _Physicists name the six quark flavors up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top._
   - _The strange is heavier than the up and down quarks but much lighter than the charm._
6. Sex with someone other than one's current partner. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Sex with someone other than your regular partner.
   - _He wrecked a good marriage chasing strange across two states._
   - _She suspected he was getting strange while traveling for work._

## Adjective

3. Belonging to or coming from another country; foreign. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Coming from another country, not your own.
7. Unaccustomed to or inexperienced in something; not yet familiar with it. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Not used to something yet, and without experience of it.
8. Reserved or distant in manner; behaving coolly toward others. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Cold and distant in the way one acts toward others.
9. Backward or slow; lagging behind or reluctant to proceed. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Slow to act and lagging behind others.

## Verb

10. To be struck with wonder or astonishment at something. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To feel great surprise or wonder at something.
11. To make or become estranged; to alienate someone from another, or to grow distant from another person. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To make someone feel distant from another person, or to slowly grow apart from someone.

## Other meanings

- (adjective) Having the quantum mechanical property called strangeness, carried by certain subatomic particles.
- (adjective) Of an attractor: having a fractal structure, as in chaotic systems, where paths that start close together soon diverge yet never exactly repeat.
- (adjective) Belonging to another person rather than oneself; not one's own.

## Origin

Latin extrāneus, meaning 'that which is on the outside', became Old French estrange and then Middle English straunge. Extraneous and estrange are doublets, and French étrange and Spanish extraño ('strange, foreign') are cognates. It largely pushed out the native words fremd, selcouth, and uncouth.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/strange (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).