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HOME | Definition of foreign (FOREIGN, Foreign)


    Foreign \For"eign\, a. [OE. forein, F. forain, LL. foraneus, fr.
    L. foras, foris, out of doors, abroad, without; akin to fores
    doors, and E. door. See Door, and cf. Foreclose,
    Forfeit, Forest, Forum.]
    1. Outside; extraneous; separated; alien; as, a foreign
    country; a foreign government. "Foreign worlds." --Milton.
    [1913 Webster]

    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." --Atterbury.
    [1913 Webster]

    Hail, foreign wonder!
    Whom certain these rough shades did never breed.
    --Milton.
    [1913 Webster]

    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.
    [1913 Webster]

    This design is not foreign from some people's
    thoughts. --Swift.
    [1913 Webster]

    4. Held at a distance; excluded; exiled. [Obs.]
    [1913 Webster]

    Kept him a foreign man still; which so grieved him,
    That he ran mad and died. --Shak.
    [1913 Webster]

    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. --Kent. --Tomlins. --Cowell.

    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. --Kent. --Story.

    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.
    [1913 Webster]

    Syn: Outlandish; alien; exotic; remote; distant; extraneous;
    extrinsic.
    [1913 Webster]

    The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48


    foreign
    adj 1: of concern to or concerning the affairs of other nations
    (other than your own); "foreign trade"; "a foreign
    office" [ant: domestic]
    2: relating to or originating in or characteristic of another
    place or part of the world; "foreign nations"; "a foreign
    accent"; "on business in a foreign city" [ant: native]
    3: not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of
    something; "an economic theory alien to the spirit of
    capitalism"; "the mysticism so foreign to the French mind
    and temper"; "jealousy is foreign to her nature" [syn: alien]
    4: not belonging to that in which it is contained; introduced
    from an outside source; "water free of extraneous matter";
    "foreign particles in milk" [syn: extraneous]

    WordNet (r) 2.0


    89 Moby Thesaurus words for "foreign":
    accidental, adventitious, alien, apart, barbarian, barbaric,
    barbarous, curious, detached, disconnected, discrete, disjunct,
    disrelated, dissociated, distant, distasteful, exotic, exterior,
    external, exterrestrial, exterritorial, extragalactic,
    extralateral, extraliminal, extramundane, extramural, extraneous,
    extraorganismal, extrapolar, extraprovincial, extrasolar,
    extraterrestrial, extraterritorial, extratribal, extrinsic,
    foreign-born, immaterial, impersonal, impertinent, imported,
    inapplicable, inapposite, inappropriate, incommensurable,
    incomparable, incompatible, incongruous, inconsistent, inconsonant,
    independent, insular, intrusive, irrelative, isolated,
    nonsubjective, objective, obnoxious, odd, other, outland,
    outlandish, outlying, outside, outward, overseas, peculiar, remote,
    removed, repellent, repugnant, segregate, separate, separated,
    strange, tramontane, transalpine, transatlantic, transpacific,
    ulterior, unaffiliated, unallied, unassimilable, unassociated,
    unconnected, unearthly, unfamiliar, unknown, unrelatable,
    unrelated

    Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0


    FOREIGN. That which belongs to another country; that which is strange. 1
    Peters, R. 343.
    2. Every nation is foreign to all the rest, and the several states of
    the American Union are foreign to each other, with respect to their
    municipal laws. 2 Wash. R. 282; 4 Conn. 517; 6 Conn. 480; 2 Wend. 411 1
    Dall. 458, 463 6 Binn. 321; 12 S. & R. 203; 2 Hill R. 319 1 D. Chipm. 303 7
    Monroe, 585 5 Leigh, 471; 3 Pick. 293.
    3. But the reciprocal relations between the national government and the
    several states composing the United States are not considered as foreign,
    but domestic. 9 Pet. 607; 5 Pet. 398; 6 Pet. 317; 4 Cranch, 384; 4 Gill &
    John. 1, 63. Vide Attachment, for foreign attachment; Bill of exchange, for
    foreign bills of exchange; Foreign Coins; Foreign Judgment; Foreign Laws;
    Foreigners.

    Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)




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