alienation
(ˌeɪlɪəˈneɪʃən)
Also 5–6 alyenacion, -cyon.
[a. MFr. alienacion, ad. L. aliēnātiōn-em, n. of action f. alienā-re: see alien v.]
1. a. The action of estranging, or state of estrangement in feeling or affection. Const. (of obs.) from.
| 1388 Wyclif Job xxxi. 3 Alienacioun of God is to men worchynge wickidnesse. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. iii. iii. i. i, Alexander..saw now an alienation in his subiects hearts. 1670 G. H. Hist. Cardinals ii. iii. 298 The alienation shew'd by the Pope from the French. 1770 Burke Pres. Discont. Wks. II. 275 They grow every day into alienation from this country. 1862 Stanley Jew. Ch. (1877) I. xvii. 323 The alienation of the people from the worship of the sanctuary. |
b. spec. alienation of affection(s): see quot. 1961. U.S.
| [1861 Rep. Cases Wisconsin Supr. Court 1860 XI. 430 The evidence offered by the defendant, for the purpose of showing that the affections of the wife had been previously alienated..should have been admitted.] 1867 in N. Howard Practice Rep. Supreme Court N.Y. XXXII. 145 Does such alienation of affection—such refusal to recognize and receive the plaintiff as her husband, and to live with him as his wife—..constitute a cause of action, when caused as charged in the complaint? 1922 Dominion Law Rep. LXVI. 144 An affection that was merely flickering faintly with life might be finally killed by the act of adultery. Would even this not be an alienation of affection? 1933 in S. N. Grant-Bailey Lush on the Law of Husband & Wife (ed. 4) i. 36 It would seem that the English temperament is sufficiently sagacious to make the importation into the English law of the alienation of affection as a ground for action so remote as to be a negligible danger. 1949 M. Mead Male & Female xv. 299 Alienation-of-affection cases between two men, which assume that the woman is a gently pliant lily, ring just as false. 1961 Webster, Alienation of affection, the transfer of a person's affection from someone who has certain rights or claims to such affection to a third person who is held to be the instigator or cause of the transfer. |
c. Marxism. (See quot. 1962.) (Marx's term Entäusserung, which he used in ‘Zur Judenfrage’, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1844, has been rendered by ‘self-alienation’ and ‘dehumanization’ as well as by ‘alienation’.)
| 1926 H. J. Stenning tr. Marx's Sel. Essays 95 After Christianity had completed the alienation of man from himself..Judaism [could] attain to general domination and turn the alienated individual..into alienable and saleable objects. 1958 Listener 7 Aug. 194/1 Marx, or at any rate the early Marx, has used a concept, Hegelian in origin, which Berdyaev found immensely fruitful for his own discussion of the idea of objectivity: the concept of ‘alienation’. Men turn or are turned into impoverished things, dependent on power outside themselves. 1962 E. Kamenka Ethical Foundations Marxism 12 The philosophico-ethical conceptions that underlie the younger Marx. Chief among these conceptions is that of ‘alienation’: the notion that in modern capitalistic society man is estranged or alienated from what are properly his functions and creations and that instead of controlling them he is controlled by them. |
d. Theatr. In full alienation effect. [tr. G. verfremdungseffekt (Brecht, ‘Verfremdungseffekte in der chinesischen Schauspielkunst’, 1937, in Schriften z. Theater, 1957).] An effect sought by the German playwright Brecht and followers, aimed at the destruction of many of the conventions of theatrical illusion.
| [1948 E. R. Bentley Brecht's Private Life of Master Race 91 The meaning of the device is, in a word, Verfremdung. The audience is put at a distance from the events related, is prevented from identifying itself with any character because each actor is all the time shifting roles.] 1949 ― in Theatre Arts Jan. 38/2 It is Brecht's contention that..we need a kind of acting..that will set the action before us rather than involve us in the action... The German word which Brecht has made up to describe the distancing or estranging of the action is Verfremdung, here translated as ‘alienation’. Any device which promotes such alienation is called an A-effect. 1956 K. Tynan in Observer 2 Sept. 10/2 The famous ‘alienation-effect’ was originally intended to counter balance the extravagant rhetoric of German classical acting. 1956 S. Wanamaker in Internat. Theatre Ann. 125 His [Brecht's] principal theory: objectivity of the spectator, distancing, alienation of the audience's feeling and involvement. 1962 Listener 29 Nov. 932/2 This method of description seems almost like a parallel to Brecht's ‘alienation effect’. We watch, we judge, but we do not participate. |
2. a. The action of transferring the ownership of anything to another.
| 1430 Lydg. Chron. Troy v. xxxvi, Kinges in theyr bedde are slawe; Whiche bringeth in alyenacyon By extorte tytle false successyon. 1463 in Bury Wills (1850) 26 Wich obligacion must be maad at euery alyenacion in a notable summe. 1587 Harrison Engl. i. ii. ii. 48 Hereford..paid to Rome at everie alienation 1800 ducats at the least. 1661 Bramhall Just Vind. iii. 39 Prohibiting..the alienation of Lands to the Church. 1699 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) IV. 580 Mr. Charles Boyl..succeeds..as receiver of the alienation office. 1788 Priestley Lect. Hist. v. lii. 405 Price, however, supposes alienation; and a common standard of value supposes a frequent and familiar alienation. 1876 K. Digby Real Prop. x. §1. 368 By alienation is meant the intentional and voluntary transfer of a right. |
b. The taking of anything from its owner.
| 1583 Babington Wks. 319 The forbidding of stealth which is an alienation of an other mans goodes to our selves. |
c. Diversion of anything to a different purpose.
| 1828 Ld. Grenville Sinking Fund 59 That of 1786 was..‘fortified as much as possible against alienation.’ |
3. The state of being alienated, or held by other than the proper owner.
| 1818 Todd Dict. s.v., The estate was wasted during its alienation. |
4. Mental alienation: Withdrawal, loss, or derangement of mental faculties; insanity. (So in L.)
| 1482 Monk of Evesham (1869) 20 That he had seyd hyt of grete febulnesse of his hedde, or by alyenacion of hys mynde. 1607 Topsell Four-footed Beasts (1673) 272 It infecteth as well the heart as the brain, and causeth alienation of minde. 1748 Hartley Observ. Man i. iii. §6 Temporary alienations of the Mind during violent Passions. 1862 Ld. Brougham Brit. Const. xiii. 194 He had fallen into a state of mental alienation. |
† 5. Alteration, change. Obs.
| 1615 Crooke Body of Man 503 A Hecticke Feuer in which there is an vtter alienation of the Temperament. |
6. alienation coefficient or coefficient of alienation in Statistics: a ratio expressing the degree of lack of correlation of two variables.
| 1919 T. L. Kelley in Jrnl. Appl. Psychol. III. 61 Just as ·484 is the coefficient of correlation between intelligence and vocational choice, so may ·875 be called the coefficient of alienation between the same two things. 1923 ― Statist. Method xi. 289 We have called k0·12 the multiple alienation coefficient... We will define k01·2 as the partial alienation coefficient. 1936 J. P. Guilford Psychometric Methods iii. xi. 362 The expression √(1-r2) is known as the coefficient of alienation, and it measures the absence of relationship just as r measures its presence. |