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Stranger vs Unknown - What's the difference?

stranger | unknown |

As adjectives the difference between stranger and unknown

is that stranger is comparative of strange while unknown is not known; unidentified; not well known.

As nouns the difference between stranger and unknown

is that stranger is a person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance while unknown is a variable (usually x, y or z) whose value is to be found.

As a verb stranger

is to estrange; to alienate.

stranger

English

Adjective

(head)
  • (strange)
  • * Truth is stranger than fiction. (English proverb)

    • Derived terms

    * See strange

    Related terms

    * See strange

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance.
  • :
  • *
  • *: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.
  • An outsider or foreigner.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:I am a most poor woman and a stranger , / Born out of your dominions.
  • * (1666-1735)
  • *:Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, / And strangers to the sun yet ripen here.
  • *1961', : “”
  • A newcomer.
  • *, chapter=7
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=[…] St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger' s mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.}}
  • (lb) One who has not been seen for a long time.
  • :
  • (lb) One not belonging to the family or household; a guest; a visitor.
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:To honour and receive / Our heavenly stranger .
  • (lb) One not privy or party an act, contract, or title; a mere intruder or intermeddler; one who interferes without right.
  • :

    • Synonyms

    * (person whom one does not know) * alien, foreigner, foreign national, non-national/nonnational, non-resident/nonresident, outsider * (newcomer) newbie, newcomer

    Antonyms

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

    Derived terms

    * be no stranger to * don't be a stranger * stranger danger

    See also

    * myall

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To estrange; to alienate.
    • (Shakespeare)

    Anagrams

    * granters

    unknown

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Not known; unidentified; not well known.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown , induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.}}

    Synonyms

    * anonymous * unfamiliar * uncharted * undiscovered * unexplored * unidentified * unnamed * unrecognized * unrevealed * unascertained * obscure * unsung

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (algebra) A variable (usually x'', ''y'' or ''z ) whose value is to be found.
  • Any fact or place about which nothing is known (as in the phrase "into the unknown").
  • A person of no identity; a nonentity
  • * 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)
    • How does it feel
    To be on your own
    With no direction home
    Like a complete unknown
    Like a rolling stone?