- strange (adj.)
- late 13c., "from elsewhere, foreign, unknown, unfamiliar," from Old French estrange "foreign, alien, unusual, unfamiliar, curious; distant; inhospitable; estranged, separated" (Modern French étrange), from Latin extraneus "foreign, external, from without" (source also of Italian strano "strange, foreign," Spanish estraño), from extra "outside of" (see extra). In early use also strounge, straunge. Sense of "queer, surprising" is attested from late 14c. In nuclear physics, from 1956.
