foreignness
/ˈfɔɹən.nəs/noun
foreignness is a noun meaning “The quality of being, appearing, or being perceived as foreign; exoticness, otherness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-E-I-G-N-N-E-S-S, and it appears about once in every 19 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of foreignness is foreignnesses.
What does foreignness mean?
noun
- 1
The quality of being, appearing, or being perceived as foreign; exoticness, otherness.
- 2
A characteristic that indicates foreignness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce foreignness?
- US /ˈfɔɹən.nəs/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of foreignness
- foreignnesses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is foreignness?
Foreignness appears about once in every 19 million words in written English, the 133,440th 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).
Foreignness in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense quality of being, appearing, or being perceived as foreign:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | extranéité |
| German | Fremdheit |
| Portuguese | estrangeirismo |
| Spanish | ajenidad |
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 foreignness come from?
From foreign + -ness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).