1The state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved.

1. 1.1 Loss or lack of sympathy; estrangement.
   public alienation from bureaucracy

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The turnout at the polls is expected to fall to an unprecedented low, expressing widespread alienation from the political process.
   • But as in 2001, if anything these grim statistics underestimate the scale of public alienation from the political class.
   • Mass alienation from the political system is reflected in the dismal turnout at the polls - an estimated 38 or 39 percent, the second lowest in history.
   • There is a deep degree of social alienation from the whole political process.
   • Sundquist believes Chesnutt's subtle focus on his African roots is meant to highlight his sense of difference and alienation from the mainstream.
   • It has meaning for us too: issues of law and order, immigration, alienation from mainstream politics and the extremity of the challenge for the left are just as true here as there.
   • In the last general election alienation from the establishment political parties led to a voter strike. The result was the lowest turnout since universal suffrage was introduced.
   • The relationship between fan and idol suffers from a tragic alienation or lack of consummation.
   • The reasons for the alienation from the Democratic Party are not hard to find.
   • Instead, it is defined by its disconnection and alienation from party matters.
   • The third party was able to capitalise on the alienation from both major parties to significantly boost its vote and more than double its seats.
   • He is worried about hubris, overstretch, a too-great reliance on military force, the alienation and anger of foreigners.
   • Government defeats in high-profile referendums on the Nice treaty and abortion have highlighted the political establishment's alienation from the electorate.
   • While the movement may no longer be so visible, there is no diminution of that original sense of alienation from India.
   • He also identified a sense of alienation from the political process, rather than apathy; a feeling of disengagement more likely to be found in areas of high deprivation.
   • In those places, what is needed least of all is any sense of alienation from the political system.
   • But, if anyone doubts the growing sense of popular alienation from the great European project, they should have been paying closer attention to events in Dublin in the last few days.
   • Social inequality has grown and alienation from the political establishment is widespread.
   • Achebe and Ellison have been among the most eloquent spokesmen for the alienation of the modern black person.
   • The result is deep-going alienation from the political process.
2. 1.2 (in Marxist theory) a condition of workers in a capitalist economy, resulting from a lack of identity with the products of their labor and a sense of being controlled or exploited.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • On thing Marx is known for is his theory of worker alienation.
   • Each chapter takes a detailed and wide-ranging look at aspects of Marxist theory such as alienation, oppression, the family and class struggle.
   • But the rhetoric of Marxist exploitation and alienation does not speak to the needs of non-labourers, and may indeed oppose them.
   • The heart of the dialectic lies in Hegel's theory of alienation.
   • Secondly, Marx was opposed to the state and figured that once capitalist relations of alienation were overthrown, there would be no need for a state any longer.
3. 1.3Psychiatry A state of depersonalization or loss of identity in which the self seems unreal, thought to be caused by difficulties in relating to society and the resulting prolonged inhibition of emotion.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • The result is alienation, depersonalization, and degradation of the human purpose.
   • In other words, they try to keep their addiction secret and suffer low self esteem and alienation as a result.
   • Amotivation represents the lowest possible level of self-determination, as it implies a loss of personal control and alienation akin to learned helplessness.
   • More recently, Seeman suggested that normlessness and meaninglessness are manifestations of anomie rather than of alienation.
   • The teacher's certainty about his role, largely the result of alienation, asserts hierarchy.
4. 1.4 An effect, sought by some dramatists, whereby the audience remains objective and does not identify with the actors.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • As the process is reflected upon, an effect of Brechtian alienation occurs, and the naturalization of genre is dismantled.
   • This was the theory of alienation whereby the audience, already familiar with the story line, does not get caught up with the narrative.
   • In Henry V, the character of the Chorus serves as much to establish an effect of alienation as to plunge the audience into the fiction.
   • The two works amply demonstrate ways in which the separation of voice and image can be used by a director to create alienation in the audience and to shift the balance of power between characters on screen.
   • And, through that shock or that alienation effect, you're induced to rethink certain conditions.
5. 1.5Law The transfer of the ownership of property rights.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • I think this Court has said on a couple of occasions that alienation is critical to ownership.
   • First used to indicate the process of alienation of Church property to the state, it soon came to be applied to the loss of temporal power by the Church.
   • The covenant is concerned with alienation of the property.
   • I am not satisfied that an alienation or transfer of property, in and of itself, is a sufficient basis on which to imply a trust of that property.
   • Another example of alienation arises when one joint tenant charges his interest in the property.

   Synonyms

   transfer, conveyance, passing on, handing over, devolution