ALIENATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does alienate mean? 

• ALIENATE (verb)
  The verb ALIENATE has 3 senses:

1. arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness

2. transfer property or ownership

3. make withdrawn or isolated or emotionally dissociated

  Familiarity information: ALIENATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ALIENATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they alienate    ... he / she / it alienates   
Past simple: alienated   
Past participle: alienated   
-ing form: alienating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

alienate; disaffect; estrange

Context example:

She alienated her friends when she became fanatically religious

Hypernyms (to "alienate" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "alienate"):

drift apart; drift away (lose personal contact over time)

wean (detach the affections of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The performance is likely to alienate Sue

Derivation:

alienator (an unpleasant person who causes friendly people to become indifferent or unfriendly or hostile)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Transfer property or ownership

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

alien; alienate

Context example:

The will aliened the property to the heirs

Hypernyms (to "alienate" is one way to...):

transfer (cause to change ownership)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

alienable (transferable to another owner)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Make withdrawn or isolated or emotionally dissociated

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Context example:

the boring work alienated his employees

Hypernyms (to "alienate" is one way to...):

affect; impress; move; strike (have an emotional or cognitive impact upon)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

 Context examples 

It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

What alienates him from the house?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She had probably alienated love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could deserve.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Such opportunities as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have devoted to corresponding at some length with my family.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

These villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to London, after first alienating her from her faithful maid.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

These difficulties, indeed, with a heart so alienated from Lucy, might not press very hard upon his patience; but melancholy was the state of the person by whom the expectation of family opposition and unkindness, could be felt as a relief!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

After what had passed to wound and alienate the two families, the continuance of the Bertrams and Grants in such close neighbourhood would have been most distressing; but the absence of the latter, for some months purposely lengthened, ended very fortunately in the necessity, or at least the practicability, of a permanent removal.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The sister with whom she was used to be on easy terms was now become her greatest enemy: they were alienated from each other; and Julia was not superior to the hope of some distressing end to the attentions which were still carrying on there, some punishment to Maria for conduct so shameful towards herself as well as towards Mr. Rushworth.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)