Alien concept
Meaning
A concept that is completely unfamiliar, strange, or difficult to grasp because it is outside one's prior experience or understanding.
Origin
The word 'alien' hails from the Latin alienus, meaning 'of another' or 'foreign,' arriving in English by the 14th century to denote someone from a different land. Its journey into wider usage saw it shed its strictly human reference, evolving to describe anything strikingly unfamiliar or external to one's own nature or world. When combined with 'concept,' it powerfully conveys an idea so utterly outside one's frame of reference that it might as well originate from another planet, creating a vivid image of intellectual estrangement.
Examples
- For someone who grew up in a desert, the idea of a perpetual winter wonderland would be an alien concept.
- His boss tried to explain the new software, but the advanced coding was an alien concept to the marketing team.