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Shun vs Alienate - What's the difference?

shun | alienate |

As an adjective alienate is

estranged; withdrawn in affection; foreign; with from .

As a noun alienate is

(obsolete) a stranger; an alien.

As a verb alienate is

to convey or transfer to another, as title, property, or right; to part voluntarily with ownership of.

shun

English

Verb

(shunn)
  • To avoid, especially persistently.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
  • , title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}
  • To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).
  • To screen, hide.
  • To shove, push.
  • Derived terms

    * shunless * shunnable * shunner

    References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    alienate

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Estranged; withdrawn in affection; foreign; with from .
  • O alienate from God''. (John Milton). ''Paradise Lost line 4643.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A stranger; an alien.
  • Verb

    (alienat)
  • To convey or transfer to another, as title, property, or right; to part voluntarily with ownership of.
  • To estrange; to withdraw affections or attention from; to make indifferent or averse, where love or friendship before subsisted; to wean.
  • * (rfdate) (Thomas Babington Macaulay):
  • The errors which alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart.
  • * (rfdate) (Isaac Taylor):
  • The recollection of his former life is a dream that only the more alienates him from the realities of the present.

    Usage notes

    Alienate'' is largely synonymous with estrange. However, ''alienate'' is used primarily to refer to driving off (“he ''alienated'' her with his atrocious behavior”) or to offend a group (“the imprudent remarks ''alienated'' the urban demographic”), while ''estrange is used rather to mean “cut off relations”, particularly in a family setting.

    Synonyms

    * (estrange) estrange, antagonize, isolate

    References

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