• (America) IPA: /ˈstɹeɪndʒɚ/
• (RP) IPA: /ˈstɹeɪndʒə/

1. comparative form of strange

   Truth is stranger than fiction.

• See strange

stranger (plural strangers)

1. A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.

   That gentleman is a stranger to me.  Children are taught not to talk to strangers.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619 ↗:

     In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. […] Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

2. An outsider or foreigner.
   • 1613, William Shakespeare; [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene iv]:

     I am a most poor woman and a stranger, / Born out of your dominions.

   • Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.

   • 1961, Robert A. Heinlein: “Stranger in a Strange Land”
3. One not admitted to communion or fellowship.
4. A newcomer.
5. (humorous) One who has not been seen for a long time.

   Hello, stranger!

6. (obsolete) One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 5”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger.

7. (legal) One not privy or party to an act, contract, or title; a mere intruder or intermeddler; one who interferes without right.

   Actual possession of land gives a good title against a stranger having no title.

8. (obsolete) A superstitious premonition of the coming of a visitor by a bit of stalk in a cup of tea, the guttering of a candle, etc.

• (person whom one does not know)
• (newcomer) newbie, newcomer; see also Thesaurus:newcomer or Thesaurus:beginner

• (person whom one does not know) acquaintance, friend
• (outsider, foreigner) compatriot, countryman, fellow citizen, fellow countryman, national, resident
• (newcomer)

• French: inconnu, inconnue
• German: Fremder, Fremde, Fremdling, Fremdlingin
• Italian: sconosciuto, straniero, straniera
• Portuguese: estranho, estranha
• Russian: незнако́мец
• Spanish: extraño, extraña, desconocido, desconocida

• French: étranger, étrangère
• German: Fremder, Fremde, Ausländer, Ausländerin, Fremdling
• Italian: straniero, straniera
• Portuguese: estrangeiro, estrangeira, forasteiro
• Russian: иностра́нец
• Spanish: forastero, forastera, extranjero, extranjera

• German: Fremder, Fremde, Neuling
• Portuguese: recém-chegado, recém-chegada
• Russian: новоприбы́вший

• Portuguese: sumido

stranger (strangers, present participle strangering; past and past participle strangered)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To estrange; to alienate.