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alien

/ˈeɪ.li.ən/noun, adjective, verb

alien is spelled A-L-I-E-N: 5 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,365th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, alien means “A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of alien is aliens.

How many letters and syllables are in alien?

Letters5: A-L-I-E-N
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing19 times per million words; the 4,365th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is alien?

Alien appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,365th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce alien?

  • /ˈeɪ.li.ən/
  • /ˈeɪ.ljən/

Alien has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-alien.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with alien?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as alien.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: aline, linea, liane, anile.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of alien

  • aliens plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • alyaunte
  • more alien comparative
  • most alien superlative
  • aliening participle, present
  • aliened participle, past
  • aliene

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does alien mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration.

  2. 2

    A citizen or national of another sovereign state.

  3. 3

    derogatoryA mischievous or suspicious foreigner.

  4. 4

    Any life form of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origin.

  5. 5

    One excluded from certain privileges; one alienated or estranged.

adjective

  1. 1

    Not belonging to the same country, land, or government, or to the citizens or subjects thereof; foreign.

    alien subjects, enemies, property, or shores

  2. 2

    Very unfamiliar, strange, or removed.

    principles alien to our religion

  3. 3

    Pertaining to extraterrestrial life; typical of an extraterrestrial creature.

verb

  1. 1

    To estrange; to alienate.

  2. 2

    To transfer the ownership of something.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Alien in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchétranger, étrangère (person, etc. from outside), extraterrestre, alien (life form of non-Earth origin)
GermanFremdling, Fremder, Fremde, Ausländer, Ausländerin (person, etc. from outside), ausländisch (not belonging to the same country)
Portugueseestranho (person, etc. from outside), alienígena, extraterrestre, alien (life form of non-Earth origin), estrangeiro, forasteiro (foreigner)
Spanishdesconocido, desconocida, advena, forastero (person, etc. from outside), extranjero, extranjera (foreigner)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does alien come from?

From Middle English alien, a borrowing from Old French alien, aliene, from Latin aliēnus (“belonging to someone else”, later “exotic, foreign”), from Latin alius (“other”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂élyos. Related to English else.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

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