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Glite Dictionary
🙁 To make unfriendly 📄 To transfer ownership
to alienate

to alienate

2 7.7
To give property or rights to someone else
  • verb
  • /ˈeɪliəˌneɪt/
  • Formal
translation icon : enajenar
  • Just as donative trust beneficiaries generally cannot transfer or sell their trust interests, 401(k) participants cannot assign or alienate benefits.
  • alienate property
  • alienate property rights
  • alienate land

Examples

  • Jordan's decision during the conflict to back Saddam Hussein and thereby alienate its major external source of financial assistance, Saudi Arabia, appears illogical and counterproductive.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Individuals usually have the right to alienate—sell or give away—personal property.

    Academic text (1996)

  • The form of ownership may not permit any right to alienate the land that is identified with the people who live on it.

    Academic text (1990)

  • The right to acquire, use, and alienate property has long been regarded as a fundamental value in Anglo-American constitutional thought.

    Academic text (2004)

  • By the late 1960s, the government had alienated more than 300,000 acres of land to 67,000 people in major colonization schemes.

    Academic text (2006)

  • Moreover, the sovereign cannot alienate either jus publicum or jus regium, especially because the public's interest is such an intrinsic element.

    Academic text (2001)

  • The artist decided to alienate the painting to a local museum for public display.

  • She chose to alienate her family's estate to a charitable foundation after her passing.

  • They agreed to alienate their rights to the land for the development of new housing.

Synonyms

to transfer
vsto alienate
241 3.4

To make someone else the owner of something

is the specific legal act of changing ownership in law
to assign
vsto alienate
  • Formal
7 6.3

Give your rights in property to another person

shifts full ownership rather than only rights or interests
to convey
vsto alienate
  • Formal
6 5.5

To officially give property or rights to someone

focuses only on legal ownership and rights transfer in law
to divest
vsto alienate
  • Formal
4 7.2

Take away power, rights, or property from someone by official order

involves giving ownership to another party rather than stripping power
to deed over
vsto alienate
1 7.4

Give ownership of property to another person using a legal document

is the general legal transfer not limited to deed method
to alien
vsto alienate
  • Formal
9.9

To give the ownership of property or rights to another person

is the standard legal term for transferring ownership or rights

How Formal

to alienate
  • Formal
2 7.7
to convey
  • Formal
6 5.5
transfer
355 3.2
to assign
487 2.7
to pass on
134 2.7
to give
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

alienate infinitive
alienated past
alienated past participle
alienating present participle
alienates third person singular

Morphology

alienate = alien (opaque) = alien + ate

The legal sense of transferring ownership is not transparent from the adjective 'alien'.

Etymology

The legal meaning of alienate also comes from Latin alienus ('other'), and you can see the same root in the word alien ('foreign'). So to alienate property is to make it someone else's, to give it to another person.