estranged; estranging
1
: to arouse especially mutual enmity or indifference in (someone) where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness : alienate
John's excesses gradually estranged him from his mother …—Philip Norman
She became estranged from her family.
2
: to remove from customary environment or associations
The first words spoken were not those of one becoming estranged from this world, and already permitted to stray at times into realms foreign to the living.—Charlotte Brontë
estranger
noun
es·trange·ment
ə̇ˈstrānjmənt
eˈ-
plural -s
: the act of estranging or the condition of being estranged : alienation especially in friendship
the small difference of opinion snowballed into mutual resentment and resulted in final and total estrangement
the hero, a middle-aged intellectual and student, has passed through successive estrangements from bourgeois life—Time
resulted in the almost complete estrangement of arts and letters from the sciences—Scientific American Reader
Cite this Entry
“Estrange.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/estrange. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.
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