FOREIGN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Foreign

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/fˈɔrən/ /fˈɑrən/ Listen

adjective

Foreign adj.

1.

Outside; extraneous; separated; alien; as, a foreign country; a foreign government. "Foreign worlds."

2.

Not native or belonging to a certain country; born in or belonging to another country, nation, sovereignty, or locality; as, a foreign language; foreign fruits. "Domestic and foreign writers." "Hail, foreign wonder! Whom certain these rough shades did never breed."

3.

Remote; distant; strange; not belonging; not connected; not pertaining or pertient; not appropriate; not harmonious; not agreeable; not congenial; with to or from; as, foreign to the purpose; foreign to one's nature. "This design is not foreign from some people's thoughts."

4.

Held at a distance; excluded; exiled. (Obs.) "Kept him a foreign man still; which so grieved him, That he ran mad and died."

Foreign attachment (Law), a process by which the property of a foreign or absent debtor is attached for the satisfaction of a debt due from him to the plaintiff; an attachment of the goods, effects, or credits of a debtor in the hands of a third person; called in some States trustee, in others factorizing, and in others garnishee process.

Foreign bill, a bill drawn in one country, and payable in another, as distinguished from an inland bill, which is one drawn and payable in the same country. In this latter, as well as in several other points of view, the different States of the United States are foreign to each other. See Exchange, n., 4.

Foreign body (Med.), a substance occurring in any part of the body where it does not belong, and usually introduced from without.

Foreign office, that department of the government of Great Britain which has charge British interests in foreign countries.

Synonyms: Outlandish; alien; exotic; remote; distant; extraneous; extrinsic.

See images of 'Foreign'

Etymology of 'Foreign'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Foreign" Quotes from Famous Books

... was empty when Barbara entered but as she sat down at the table, the door opposite opened, and a short, foreign-looking woman came out. She stepped dead on seeing the girl: Her face seemed familiar ...

— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... appeared so ill, for he had no clew to the little comedy being played before him; and long seclusion and natural reserve unfitted him to shine beside a man of the world like Mr. Fletcher. His simple English sounded harsh, after the foreign phrases that slipped so easily over the other's tongue. He had visited no galleries, seen few of the world's wonders, and could only listen when they were discussed. More than once he was right, but failed to prove it, for Mr. Fletcher skilfully changed ...

— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... Mrs. Grover Cleveland received the Council Friday afternoon. Monday evening a reception was given by Senator and Mrs. Thomas W. Palmer of Michigan, for which eight hundred invitations were sent to foreign legations, prominent officials and the members of the Council. Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford opened their elegant home on Tuesday afternoon in honor of the pioneers in the woman suffrage movement. In addition to these many special entertainments were given for the women lawyers, physicians, ...

— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... helped Julia take the dishes into the white marble kitchen and the glasses into the little off-room. Later, Julia came to sit on the veranda, too—it was somewhat stuffy being all closed in with glass windows. There they drank pale tea, the pot kept simmering on a spirit-stove, and read the foreign papers which had just come. Mevrouw did not read, she made tea and did crochet work, a strip like Vrouw Snieder's, only yellow instead of red. Julia, it is to be feared, did not try to master the pattern so kindly set right by Denah; she could not resist the breath from the outside ...

— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... Russia. Had the party of Stein been in power, Prussia would have taken arms against Napoleon at every risk. Stein, however, was in exile his friends, though strong in the army, were not masters of the Government; the foreign policy of the country was directed by a statesman who trusted more to time and prudent management than to desperate resolves. Hardenberg had been recalled to office in 1810, and permitted to resume the great measures of civil reform which had been broken off two years before. The machinery of ...

— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

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