Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being strange.
  • noun A quantum property of strange quarks and of hadrons that contain strange quarks that is conserved in electromagnetic and strong interactions, but may not be conserved in weak interactions that cause the decay of strange hadrons.
  • noun The quantum number represented by this property, equal to the difference between the number of strange antiquarks and the number of strange quarks.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or character of being strange, in any sense of that word.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state or quality of being strange (in any sense of the adjective).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The state or quality of being strange, odd or weird.
  • noun countable The product or result of being strange.
  • noun physics one of the quantum numbers of subatomic particles that depends upon the relative number of strange quarks and anti-strange quarks

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (physics) one of the six flavors of quark
  • noun the quality of being alien or not native
  • noun unusualness as a consequence of not being well known

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From strange +‎ -ness.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word strangeness.

Examples

  • We're suspending our disbelief anyway; we know that this strangeness is all a conceit and therefore "could not have happened" (we can hardly ignore the clear literalisation of the figurative that the story is built around, that "dead car" metaphor of daily language), but we are playing the game of all fiction, strange or otherwise, pretending that it "could have happened".

    Strange Fiction in the Marketplace Hal Duncan 2008

  • We're suspending our disbelief anyway; we know that this strangeness is all a conceit and therefore "could not have happened" (we can hardly ignore the clear literalisation of the figurative that the story is built around, that "dead car" metaphor of daily language), but we are playing the game of all fiction, strange or otherwise, pretending that it "could have happened".

    Archive 2008-02-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • "Which 'Labyrinth' Character are you?" brought to you by Quizilla and who couldn't love being compared to this guy? possibly not for obvious reasons, but the strangeness is attractive * smiles* or something ... am not rambling today: P

    January 24th, 2003 mynxii 2003

  • Perhaps it is better to let the musicality of Lorca's language flow over you, catching up later with Ms. Svich's English rendering to remember what she describes as the strangeness but also the "lucid wakefulness of Lorca's writing."

    NYT > Home Page By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO 2011

  • On the other hand, the first encounter with any country, with the unavoidable (and wonderful) strangeness, is one of the most exciting and perspective-enhancing experiences one can have.

    First Impressions of Korea | Heretical Ideas Magazine 2009

  • Duncan Fyfe at Hit Self-Destruct this week writes about the certain strangeness we have come to accept in our game protagonists.

    The Week in Videogame Blogging #3 Ben Abraham 2009

  • Their strangeness is more suggested than detailed.

    An Interview With Author Steven R. Boyett « A Working Title 2009

  • Duncan Fyfe at Hit Self-Destruct this week writes about the certain strangeness we have come to accept in our game protagonists.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Ben Abraham 2009

  • The strangeness is not there to be explicated away, but to be exploited.

    Kings Hal Duncan 2009

  • The strangeness is not there to be explicated away, but to be exploited.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Hal Duncan 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.